


Instinctive Unease

by Accidental_Ducky



Category: Rose Red (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-13 20:36:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 42,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12992046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidental_Ducky/pseuds/Accidental_Ducky
Summary: “Well, ladies first.”“I’m not that old fashioned if you wanna take the lead.” Except neither of them wanted to be the first one to enter the attic when there could be something lurking up there. Wasn’t that always the case in haunted houses like this one? The big bad wolf skulking around, just waiting for prey to come to him as they follow the plot of a b-movie. What’s to stop the house from shifting again and locking them up there for the rest of their lives?“You know, we’d die gruesomely in a horror film.”“Without a doubt.”





	1. A Productive Lunch Break

The worst part of writing a book, Kimberly decided, was the blank paper that mocked you for not having any tangible ideas to put down. The paper just sat on the desk, all blank and unmarked by the pencil she currently had balanced between her upper lip and her nose. It wasn’t fair that all her amazing ideas suddenly cowered in the back of her mind whenever she brought the notebook out.

 _It’s like Bear when I try to vacuum_ , she muses, looking to the picture near the cash register of a blond-haired little boy sitting on the back of a dog. It was more a mountain of fur than anything else, but the Husky was good around Nicky and that’s all she really cared about. _Too bad they’re not here to distract me from writing_.

The thought had barely passed through her mind when the bell over the front door jingled, announcing a customer that clearly couldn’t decipher the sign that read _closed for lunch_. With an annoyed sigh, she tosses her pencil onto the desk and spins around on her stool, fully prepared to tell whoever the idiot was that she would open the bookshop again at one.

“We’re closed,” she says, then narrows her eyes when she spots the person responsible. He was tall and skinny, though not lanky, his mauve sweater tight around his biceps and his dark brown hair cut shorter than it had been the last time she’d seen him. _It looks nice. He must’ve went to that barber I suggested last weekend_.

“Is that any way to treat your favorite cousin,” the intruder in question asks.

“It is when they just barge inside,” she returns, though her words are cushioned by a smile. “Hey, Steve.” Her cousin comes to stand next to the glass display case, fiddling with the stack of books she still had to put away. “What brings you to my neck of the woods?”

“Boredom mostly. I also thought I’d swing by and take you out to lunch since I get my paycheck today.” He pauses a moment, nodding along to something he was working out in his head. “Speaking of, can I get my paycheck an hour early? I promised Dee that I’d take her out to that Chinese place that always gives us a discount.”

“They give us a discount cause the food we buy is about an hour away from expiring.” She grabs the checkbook out of her desk drawer, quickly writing out the amount and signing it before sliding it across the counter. “And because he liked to bargain with our dads.”

“I do the bargaining now, you know. Carrying on the family tradition of haggling over take-out.” Kimberly giggles at that, remembering the nights their fathers had come home holding the food up like it was the winning lottery ticket. The truth was, take-out was a lot cheaper than groceries and everyone would get full that night even if the chance of food poisoning was extremely high. “I was thinking about getting the duck.”

“Oh God, I haven’t had that in years.”

“Not since your dad brought it home that one Christmas.”

“Yeah, I’ve had duck since then and whatever my dad brought home that night wasn’t it.” It’s Steve’s turn to laugh this time, white teeth glinting slightly as he throws his head back. “What were you thinking of doing for lunch?”

“Pizza place down the block.”

“And it’s your treat?” He nods, gaze roaming around to look at all the little figurines she had on the shelf above her desk. They weren’t anything overly fancy, just a handful of glass flowers her grandmother had saved from the old manor house before they sold it to make end’s meat. Back in its day, Summer’s End had been like something out of a fairy tale, set out in the countryside with sloping hills and meadows for a backdrop. Kimberly had driven past it a couple of times, wondering what it must have been like in its glory days.

“We should get going, though, ‘cause your lunch break ends in thirty minutes.” Kim stands and shrugs her jacket on, grabbing her purse before following Steve back outside into the warm May air. This close to summer’s arrival and the impending end of classes, a good chunk of her clientele were packing up to spend their vacation with their families or somewhere tropical as college kids were wont to do. 

The walk to the pizzeria was done in a friendly silence, their arms brushing occasionally as they went along. The silence was nothing new, they could stay like that for hours and never feel weird after living together until Steve turned eighteen and moved into the dorms at Beaumont University. Emery got unnerved by all the quiet, but he was never the one to break it when he noticed that it didn’t bother anyone else.

“Aw, crap,” Steve mumbles when they finally reach their destination, spotting the gaggle of police officers sitting inside. They were gathered around their usual table beside the large window, all of them dressed in a dark blue uniform apart from one. He was a civilian, dressed in simple jeans and a button-down, his mop of dark blond hair looking un-brushed. It was no surprise, his son had taken up the entire morning by refusing to get dressed or eat breakfast before being dropped off at school.

“I don’t see why you have a problem with him,” Kimberly says, frowning at her cousin’s reaction. “He’s a sweet guy.”

“He’s a big baby, Kim. You married a grown ass man that acts about like your son does.” Kimberly rolls her eyes, opening the door and shoving Steve inside before he could back out.

“Hey, Em!” Emery and the others turn to look their way, her husband giving her a big smile when he noticed her. “Steve, get my usual while I go say hi to the guys.”

“Fine, but don’t think I’m happy about it.” She gives his arm a reassuring pat before crossing the room over to the table just big enough for five men. “And I’m not ordering a side of ranch!”

“Is he in a mood,” Emery asks once she’s by his side.

“Nah, he’s just being prissy today,” Kimberly says, shrugging. It was nothing new, Emery and Steve had never gotten along, which made Thanksgiving an awkward affair every year. The go-to method to keep their arguments from escalating was to hand Nicky to one of them and watching them realize they were acting like complete assholes in front of the one family member that thought they could do no wrong. “How’s the day going for you guys?”

“Not too bad.”

“We got a new lead on that case Em’s been helping with,” Tony adds, talking around a mouthful of pepperonis. At only twenty-five, Antonio Perez is the youngest in the group, but he had graduated at the top of his class and was quickly following in his mother’s footsteps. He also complimented her cooking, so he was in Kimberly’s good graces. “We’ll find the bastard in no time.” He claps a hand on Emery’s shoulder, not noticing the older man subtly pulling away.

“Yeah, maybe a few more days depending on my little superpower.”

“That’s great, babe,” Kimberly says, pressing a chaste kiss to his cheek. “When you boys finally do catch him, then we should have a little get-together at our place. I’ll order some tacos and ship Nicky off to his grandma’s house so he won’t have to see his parents getting shit-faced for the first time in four years.”

“Hey, Kimmy, food’s ready,” Steve calls, holding up a pizza box in much the same manner as John Cusack holding a boombox.

“Alright, I’ll let you guys get back to stuffing your faces while you can.” She wraps her arms around Emery’s neck in a hug, breathing in the comforting scent of his cologne. “And I’ll see _you_ after work.”

“Don’t forget that Nicky’s got that parent-teacher conference with the speech therapist,” he reminds her once she pulled back. Kimberly makes a face at that, not much liking meetings of any kind. “That’s the exact same face our darling son made when I reminded him about the meeting this morning.”

“Maybe that’s why he kept throwing his socks at your head. In fact, if these flats allowed for socks, I’d take ‘em off and throw them at you, too.” She looks down at her shoes, suddenly wishing she’d gone with a different pair instead of the cute black ones she currently has on. “Alas, I cannot.”

“And you wonder where Nicky gets his dramatic streak from.” She doesn’t even miss a beat before responding.

“His grandmother, obviously.”

“Well, I can’t argue with you on that point.” Patricia Waterman was well-known for her dramatics, able to get out of speeding tickets and paying full price at grocery stores if only for people to escape her. “You better get over there and eat your pizza ‘cause Steve looks about ready to explode from impatience.” Kimberly looks over her shoulder, spotting her cousin as he begins to shake the pizza box violently.

“That’d probably be smart.” She kisses him again, laughing a little when his stubble tickles her cheek. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.” Before Steve could implode, she walks right past him and to their table set near the back where no one would bother them. Sputtering, he follows right behind her and nearly throws the box down.

“What’s your deal?”

“I only have fifteen minutes to eat before I have to _cross town_ to get back to the college,” he says, flipping the box open and grabbing a slice of the sausage pizza. “Some of us have to work two jobs in order to get by.”

“Get married, it worked for me.” She smiles around a bite, Steve rolling his eyes. “Besides, I have two jobs and they’re both a lot harder than coaching a baseball team.” She furrows her brows, waiting until she swallowed before talking again. “And one of my jobs is your job, too, genius.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What _is_ the point?” He lets out a huff of air, tossing his slice back into the box, only half-eaten. He looked antsy, continuously shifting in his seat as his green eyes looked off into the distance. Unbidden, an image of Joyce sitting in her office cropped up in her mind’s eye, blurred around the edges. “Joyce?”

“Don’t do that.”

“Then stop thinking so loudly.” Kimberly rubs at her temple, trying to massage away the coming headache. “What about our darling professor has you so worried?”

“Everything’s fine with Joyce.” But he was looking everywhere except at her when he spoke, his tell flaring to life embarrassingly quickly. Kimberly arches a brow, letting her own slice of pizza drop next to his. “You should eat.”

“So should you.” They narrow their eyes in unison, beginning a staring match that lasted a whole fifteen seconds before Kimberly glanced away. “I’ll just ask Nicky about it later.”

“Nicky doesn’t know how to write yet.”

“No, but he’s getting pretty good at sign language.”

“Well, that’s just cheating.” He leans back in his seat, idly plucking a piece of sausage from the mess of cheese and popping it in his mouth. “Joyce is… Well, she’s focusing on her study of you-know-what more than she is me. I’m not saying I feel abandoned, I’d just like to know she loves me for me and not my family history.”

“Have you told her this yet?”

“No, I haven’t had time. Like I said, she’s spending a lot of time in her office at the college and she’s bargaining with people on the phone in her free time. I just about had her bra off yesterday when she remembered she had to go see the caretaker to ensure the guys bringing the equipment could get inside.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t exactly good for my ego. A house built in the nineteen-hundreds is more interesting than—”

“Yeah, I got it,” Kimberly quickly interrupts, cheeks darkening in a blush. He sighs, carding his fingers through his hair only to come up short when he realized it wasn’t long enough for that.  

“And while we’re on the topic, you and Emery are still coming with us to the house, right? I don’t think I can handle Joyce by myself if Rose Red decides to eat us.”

“Of course we are. Despite Patricia’s grumbling, it’s money we need if we want to keep the speech therapist.”

“How’s that going?”

“Nicky still refuses to speak, but he’s a fast learner when it comes to writing and sign language.” She frowns as she thinks of her baby, already four and having to learn how to write simple words in order for people to know what he wants at school. “I’m taking him to the doctor next month for another check-up.”

“It’s not a big deal that he doesn’t want to talk.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Kimberly glances up at her cousin, seeing him more as the older boy she used to idolize rather than the grown man that was just as tired as she was. They’re adults now, but it’s still hard to see him as anything less than perfect. She nods, picking at her lunch with disinterest. “So, about Patricia.”

“Oh no, we’re _not_ turning this conversation around to the issues I have with my mother-in-law.”

[Outfits](https://www.polyvore.com/instinctive_unease/collection?id=6945365)


	2. Dreams of Decades Past

It was late in the evening before Emery was able to find his way back to the apartment, suddenly glad he’d left his phone at home so that his mother couldn’t call and tell him of all the credit card statements that would be sent his way soon enough. As if he wasn’t stressed by his own bills, he had to worry about his mother’s on top of that.

Still, it was nice that he could escape now, his marriage offering more than just a woman and child he loved. As he walked into the living room and toed off his shoes, he could hear a faint giggling coming from down the hall. His muscles relaxed at the sound that meant all was well in his world, able to forget the ghostly figures he’d seen just outside the door. Tall and gaunt, the cowboy would have terrified him years ago, but now the sight of him only filled Emery with annoyance.

“Now show me the letter… B,” Kimberly was saying as he came into the bathroom. His wife and Nicholas were in the bathtub, a line of letters written on the wall with some foam that looked suspiciously like his shaving cream. Nicky pointed at the right letter, grinning brightly when Kimberly nodded. “Good job!”

“He’s got his mother’s brains,” Emery says, leaning against the sink across from the bath. “Thank God for that.”

“And his daddy’s good looks.” Nicky wipes two of the letters off the wall, working the foam over his cheeks until he had a full beard and sideburns, then turning to face Emery with his little hands in the air.

“Oh, very handsome.” He kneels down, eyes narrowed slightly. “But you seemed to have missed a spot.” Emery runs a finger through the letter Q and dabs some of the foam on the tip of his son’s nose, laughing as Nicky smiles at his reflection in the water. “How was that meeting today?” Nicky shrugs, not looking up from his reflection as he began to draw little shapes along his cheeks. “Kim?” He looks up, but finds his wife doing much the same thing as Nicky, more fascinated by the can of shaving cream than the question. “Seriously?”

“What? It’s not like it was an _important_ meeting. We paid the guy last week and don’t have to worry about that again until next month.”

“Yes, but he wanted to talk with us about Nicky’s progress.”

“So I’ll reschedule for when we get back.” He lets out a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. It was one thing for Kimberly to drop their son off before she went to work in the mornings, but it seemed something else entirely for her to attend meetings. It’s like she had a personal vendetta against the things that Emery would never understand.

“Did you at least help him with his homework?”

“Of course.” She bends down to speak into their son’s ear, just loud enough for Emery to hear. “You wanna show Daddy what you did today?” Nicky gives an enthusiastic nod, scrambling out of the bathtub and standing still so that he could get dried and dressed in his jammies. Scooby and Shaggy were printed on the front of his shirt, standing out against the green and blue of the Mystery Machine. “I’ll heat your dinner up as soon as I wash my hair.”

“Take your time, I know you’re tired.” She’d been having nightmares lately, ever since Joyce brought up the Rose Red trip. Just last night, he’d woken up to her twisting violently in their bed, muttering something under her breath that he’d later translated as her great-grandmother’s name. Beatrice Airey was often on her mind in those dreams, like she had a closer connection to her dead ancestor than she did with the rest of her family. Sometimes she would stare off into space, seeing things no one else could in much the same way Emery did.

Nicky makes an impatient noise, tugging on Emery’s hand until the older man followed him back down the short hall and across to the kitchen/dining room. Their apartment wasn’t very large, but it was theirs and he could see himself spending the rest of his life here as long as he had his family.

Nicky grabs up a small pile of papers, practically bouncing as Emery takes them from him and looks them over. Most of them were coloring book pages that he’d done in class—none were colored outside of the lines, Emery was proud to state—and a couple showed he knew his colors and shapes. A small post-it note in the pile stated that he was having a hard time recognizing his B’s and D’s, but that he was doing good overall.

“Wow, Nicky, you’re doin’ great,” Emery praises, kneeling down so that he was on the four year old’s level. “You know what this means? A chocolate milkshake after Mommy goes to bed.” Nicky smiles again, showcasing the small gap between his two front teeth and his dimples. “C’mon, let’s go see what I get to eat tonight.” He scoops his son up in his arms, setting the pages aside on the small table before heading over to the microwave near the sink.

“It’s roast,” Kimberly says, coming into the kitchen. “Your mother dropped it off a couple of hours ago along with a shoebox filled with receipts and credit card bills. I’ll file those under T for trash if you want.”

“If I don’t sort those out, then she’ll move in with us.”

“Or you can take a look at them tomorrow morning, whatever works for you.” He lets out a small huff of laughter, balancing Nicky on his hip as he pulled the plate out of the microwave, steam still coming off the roast and potatoes.

“No carrots?”

“You two don’t like them so I took one for the team and ate them.”

“Has anyone told you what a great wife you were?” She hums and shrugs, looking like a content house cat that just had its back scratched.

“I just think it’s the little things that really build our relationship. I mean, where would we be if I hated carrots, too?”

“Probably arguing over who had to pick them out of our supper.” She nods, taking a seat across from him at the table and sliding a half-finished glass of beer his way. Emery quirks up a brow as he settles Nicky on his knee. “You don’t even like beer.”

“I needed a drink after what I saw on the way home.” She shudders, getting that far off look that only happened when the memories tried to pull her down. “There was a little girl on the side of the freeway, her arm…. Oh God, her arm.” Tears gathered in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall, blinking them away as she came back to herself. “I’m sorry.”

“If we apologized every time something like that happened, then we’d probably be doing it ninety percent of the time.” He gives her a dry smile that she returns, some of the color coming back into her cheeks. “You wanna finish this?” He nudges the glass towards her, but she shakes her head.

“No, I shouldn’t have had the first half of it.” She waves his offer off, shifting in her seat and looking down at her hands as he began to eat. They stayed liked that until he was finished, none of them quite able to make eye contact as their thoughts carried them off. He could see a little girl just over Kimberly’s shoulder, her sailor dress hanging in tatters off her shrunken form, arm withered and positioned against her thin chest.

Nicky disappeared under the table, arms wrapped tightly around one of Emery’s legs. He wasn’t sure if his son could see the girl too or if he was just reacting to the tensing of Emery’s shoulders, not yet used to the things his parents saw on an almost daily basis. He could feel the four year old trembling and reached down to rest a hand on his head, working his fingers through the curls without taking his gaze off the girl.

“Her name’s April,” Kimberly murmurs, still not looking up. “She’s Steve’s great-aunt and she wants us to come visit.” Her brows twitch and her head tilts to the side, like she was hearing something faint. “S-she says that Steve needs to build.” The girl vanishes a moment later, Emery pushing his empty plate away with a grimace. He felt sick, regretting the meal now that it was over. “I think I’ll turn in early tonight. Can you handle the baby?”

“Yeah, of course.” He leans up, accepting his wife’s kiss with the same happiness as always. Everything about her was soft and her kisses were no different as she cupped his face in her hands. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She bends down, pressing a kiss against the crown of their son’s head. “And I love you too, my little prince.”

**~::*::~**

Dreams were a strange thing when you were psychic, you could never be entirely sure if they were just fanciful things or premonitions of events to come. That was especially true for Kimberly on most nights, tossing and turning with sweat making her shirt stick to her back.

Sometimes, though, the dreams were more like something out of an old movie, things that had happened long ago that Kimberly shouldn’t know about at all. Like how she’d seen her great-grandmother dancing to some upbeat song, the skirt of her dress flaring out whenever her husband would twirl her around; or how she’d seen her great-uncle crawling his way towards the front gates of Rose Red, his car a burning wreck on the side of the road and a single hand outreached as though if he could just touch the cold iron, then he might survive to see his younger sister again.

When she was younger, her parents would just brush the dreams off as her vivid imagination because how could a five year old possibly describe a dance that was made popular in the early nineteen-hundreds? How could she know about a manor house she’d never even heard discussed before since it had long since fallen into disrepair? But she did know, and she could probably describe Summer’s End in such intricate detail that her parents would think she’d hitched a ride there at some point.

It wasn’t until she turned seven that she realized her little ability to know things made the adults nervous. They didn’t like that she knew what bills they were worrying about that week or that she sometimes said things her uncle Alfred had been fond of saying before he died in 1934. And, while she now knew not to say these things to the adults, she could speak freely to her cousin when they were supposed to be sleeping at night.

Crammed into a small bedroom in a crumbling apartment building, Steve and Kimberly had been raised to know that family were the ones you could always depend on, and they were intent on keeping it that way even so many years later. There were nights where one or the other would get a text that said _park_ , and they would know to throw on a pair of pants and some shoes before driving to the old apartment building formerly known as Park Place.

Together, they would curl up on a bench across from the now-vacant lot and just talk through whatever was keeping them up that night. Sometimes it would be Steve telling her about how his rent had been raised and he’d need extra hours at the bookshop, sometimes it would be Kimberly describing her latest dream that seemed so jumbled in her head now that she was awake, and sometimes they wouldn’t speak at all, just taking comfort as their arms pressed together and warmth spread through them.

Tonight, though, was a little different than Kimberly was used to. There were no simple flashes of years gone by or a scene of a happy couple played in fast forward. This time, her dream was vivid and in color, and she couldn’t seem to escape; the faster she attempted to run, the more the dream sucked her in like quicksand. Eventually, she just gave in and let the ancient memory sweep her far away from her bed and into the year of 1909.

_Kimberly wasn’t sure where she was at first, taking in the elaborate carving in the wood molding, the four-poster bed with the tops shaped into little pinecones, and the view of a sprawling back yard through the windows on either side of the bed. A woman was leaning against one of the walls, dark hair done up in a simple bun and her white, butterfly-adorned dress forming a near perfect silhouette._

_The door opening had the woman turning around, revealing delicate features and blue eyes like Kimberly has never seen outside of bad dreams. “Is someone there,” she asks, edging away from the wall. Kimberly opened her mouth to answer, only to have someone else beat her to the punch._

_“Just me.” The door opens wider and a man steps inside, tall and broad, handsome the way some older men were. He looked to be in his early forties, old scarring along his cheeks and wrinkles around his mouth, his nose looking a little too small for his face. “I thought I’d stop by and see how you were settling in.”_

_“Perfectly fine, thank you.” Her voice was soft, barely more than a whisper as she gazed up at the man shyly through her lashes. “Frederick’s up in the library.”_

_“I’ll talk to him in a moment.” There’s a beat of silence where the pair studied each other, unaware Kimberly was just a few feet away doing the same thing. It didn’t take much to piece it all together, this was Beatrice’s first week inside Rose Red and the man dominating the room was none other than John P. Rimbauer himself. “What do you think of the place so far?”_

_“It’s beautiful.” Beatrice’s eyes light up and a smile shows the dimples she shares with Nicholas, taking another step forward. “You’ve really outdone yourself with this house, John. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so big.”_

_“Come now, Bess, your own home was quite a beauty, too. I’m sure Summer’s End will look even better once it’s been rebuilt.”_

_“Freddy said I could make some small changes to the blueprints once everything’s settled. I was thinking about putting in a little solarium like the one you have here.”_

_“Near the kitchen?”_

_“Actually, near the parlor. There wouldn’t be any herbs like there are in yours, just some pretty flowers to make the air sweeter for guests.” She looked excited at the prospect, something Kimberly could understand well after fighting tooth and nail for the little community garden she’d designed for the backyard of their apartment building. “I was hoping Sukeena could help me with it.”_

_“She’d be honored, I’m sure.” His smile had dimmed at the mention of Ellen’s companion, brown eyes sweeping around the room as though expecting the other woman to appear out of the woodwork. He wasn’t fond of her, that much was clear, though Kimberly wasn’t sure if it was because of the woman’s race or just because she had Ellen’s ear. “Well, if you need anything don’t be afraid to drop by my study.” John turns to leave the room only to have Beatrice catch the sleeve of his jacket, fingers pale against the black velvet. He looks at her, taking in the faint blush with raised brows._

_“I just wanted to tell you how grateful Freddy and I are that you’re allowing us to stay here until our manor is rebuilt. It’s very kind of you.” John smiles, not a very comforting one, and presses a kiss against Beatrice’s temple._

_“Think nothing of it.” The kiss, while it hadn’t been anything scandalous between a brother and sister-in-law, lingered a bit longer than necessary. It was something that wouldn’t be noticed at first, but the way Beatrice paled suggested it hadn’t been the first time. “I’ll see you at dinner.”_

_“Yes.” She nods, rubbing her hand against the skirt of her dress as though she’d touched something foul. “Yes, of course.”_

Kimberly jerked awake, short hair plastered against her face as she attempted to push the memory out of her head. She hated when that happened, when it just sucked her in and refused to let her ago until the scene had run its course. Swallowing hard around the lump building in her throat, she pushed the covers off and stood up as fast as she could, almost running into the bathroom.

She splashed some cool water on her face, taking a moment to slow her racing heart as she stared at her reflection. There were dark bruises beneath her eyes, signs of sleepless nights that have gotten even worse since Joyce announced her little road trip. The house eats people and Joyce wants to drag a group of psychics in, that right there should tell the world she’s completely off her rocker.

“It wasn’t real,” Kimberly mutters under her breath, bracing her hands against the cold porcelain of the sink. “It was just a trick.” But she knew it wasn’t, she knew the difference between fake memories and real ones, and the one she’d just seen was too vivid to be fake. She grabs a wash rag and dabs at her face, drying up tears and water all in the same motion.

She was just about to head back to the bedroom and attempt to snatch a couple hours of sleep, but she stopped in the short hallway. There was the sound of metal on glass, like someone was… _Like someone was sneaking him and his son a chocolate milkshake at two in the morning_.

Kimberly walked into the living room, trying her best not to smile as Emery and Nicky looked up at her with chocolate around their mouths. Their eyes widened almost comically once they realized they’d been caught. She tried to look stern, she really did, but it melted into a smile as she joined them on the couch.

“Next time, invite me to your little ice cream fest.”

“You got it, boss.”


	3. Dinner and Family History

The night before the group meeting was relatively uneventful, just Kimberly’s little family eating in her apartment and watching Nicky play. The dinner had consisted of mac and cheese with hot dogs cut up in it, simple and filling for the group of five that occupied the dining area. She and Steve had grown up with it, one of the few quick and cheap meals they could never grow tired of.

The conversation had gone from planning summer barbeques to family stories of summers past and everything in between. Eventually, they trailed off for a few minutes, watching on fondly as Nicky built a small cottage with his Lincoln Logs. They’d been a gift from Steve just last fall, an early birthday present that had earned him the title of the world’s best godfather.

“So,” Joyce asks with a smile, interrupting the peace,” are you guys excited to go this weekend?" The other three adults share matching looks of _not in the least_. Unlike Joyce, they fully knew what that house was capable of and what spirits it liked to send out on scaring missions.

"About excited as I would be to give birth on the freeway," Kimberly answers with a wry smile. “Which I came very close to doing.” _That_ had been a day she’d never forget, the thirtieth of October ingrained in her memory for very painful reasons.

“Oh, come on, it can’t be that bad. It’s a dead cell!” _It's only dead to people who aren't psychic_. Emery shared the sentiment, scoffing at Joyce’s words. He liked her even less than he did Steve, her flagrant disregard of how dangerous the house was only making his dislike increase. "Really, guys, it's going to be fun!"

"The only reason I'm coming is because I'm not letting Steve and Em go without me." She shifts slightly in her seat as Nicky runs over to her, arms outstretched in a _pick me up_ gesture. She obliges, settling him on her lap with her arms wrapped around his middle to ensure he didn’t slide off as he wiggled. The four year old seems content to play with an unused fork while the others talked, his curly blond hair tickling Kimberly’s nose whenever he sat up straight. "Have you managed to recruit that one kid you wanted?"

"I'm not sure." Joyce bites her lip, tugging on one of her wild curls as she thinks. Kimberly looked between her and Steve, still not entirely sure she wasn't just using him to get to Rose Red because they have nothing in common. Even the Rose Red connection is different—Joyce is obsessed with it and thinks of it as a harmless kitten while Steve hates it and knows for a fact it's an untamed lion waiting to devour the first idiot that walks through its doors.

_That must make us the biggest idiots on the planet_.

"It's getting late," Steve points out. He’s staring out the window, but not seeing it at the same time. His mind is elsewhere, maybe back at that monster of a house with all of their relatives. "We should get going so you guys can get little man to sleep." Kimberly nods, standing up with Nicholas still in her arms. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” He gives Kimberly a long hug, Nicky sandwiched between them until he started squirming and pushing at Steve’s shoulder.

“I love you, Steve.”

“Love you too, Kimmy.” He ruffles Nicky’s hair, grinning in spite of himself when the little boy shoves his hand away. “What do you say, kiddo, will you be my sidekick tomorrow night? I could use some backup at the college.” Nicky shrugs his shoulders, brown eyes bright with excitement at the prospect of following the older man around.

“If you wanna do that, then you’ll have to be extra good tonight, which means going to bed on time.” Nicky gives his mom a quick hug before making her set him back on his feet, giving Joyce and Emery hugs, then sprinting off for his bedroom. “Wow, that works better than when we offered to give him money.”

“It’s because he loves me more.” Steve gains a smug expression, though it disappears when Kimberly delivers a light smack to his chest. “Right, we’ll just head out before you break out the flip flops.”

“Be careful tonight, it’s almost a full moon and all the crazies will be coming out.”

“I’m always careful.”

“Tell that to the broken arm you got when you thought it was a good idea to jump off a stack of hay bales at a haunted house.”

**~::*::~**

The auditorium Joyce had booked for them was one of the smaller ones Beaumont University had to offer, though their assembled group wouldn’t even take up a full row of seating had they been next to each other. As it is, they were spaced out amongst one of the sections of chairs, a ragtag group of people that looked out of place amongst the old brick and arched ceilings of the room.

Kimberly had watched each person come in and navigate their way to a spot; a young blonde woman and an older brunette sticking together in the second row, the former seeming shy despite her gorgeous looks and the latter’s blue eyes shining with excitement behind her square-framed glasses. Behind them was a man that looked to be in his early thirties, skinny with blond hair that looked like he’d just rolled out of bed, seated in the third row by himself with a smile making the corner of his mouth tilt upwards just so. In the fourth row were Emery and an older man that might have been in his mid-fifties if Kimberly had to guess, gray hair tidy, clothing nice if a little worn, and a bolo tie to bring it all together.

Separate there wouldn’t seem to be much special about them, but gathered together like this allowed anyone to feel the slight pulse in the air that came with a crowd of psychics. Even Steve, sitting on Kimberly’s left in the first row, shifted in his seat from time to time as though feeling something he couldn’t explain fully. Not rationally, at least.

“Alright,” Joyce says, taking up her spot on the stage. Everyone’s gaze was drawn to her immediately, her smile bright and comforting as the chatter dies down. “If everyone’s settled, I’d like to begin.” She looks around the room for someone in particular, but doesn’t let her disappointment show when she doesn’t find them. “Despite what some people may think, psychic powers have no moral gradient. They’re neither good nor bad much like the technology we use is neither good nor bad.” She makes the short walk over to the podium, stance confident after talking about this very subject for the past four years. “Houses are different. Shirley Jackson had it right that some houses are born bad.” She presses a button on the pad in front of her and the lights dim, another button had a picture of Rose Red appearing on the screen behind and to the right of her. Vines clung to the sides of the bricks, climbing higher and higher until they reached the eaves. “Rose Red is the prime example of this.”

“I knew it was big,” the older woman says, almost laughing,” but that’s _enormous_.” In fact, it’s the biggest house in Seattle, still sparking _ooh’s and ah’s_ from tourists whenever they file in to watch the leaves change. Kimberly couldn’t wait to see it crumble into dust.

“Yes, Cathy, it’s certainly that. It’s also a dead cell, so we have nothing to worry about.” She kept repeating that phrase like it was actually supposed to offer comfort, like no one here would learn how big a lie that was. The picture changes to another part of Rose Red, showcasing the pointed roofs and numerous chimney stacks. “There have been no overt manifestations in Rose Red since 1995 or so. I believe that houses have their own inner lights that may or may not be conscious. If Rose Red ever achieved consciousness, then it manifested itself early.” Another picture in the slideshow, this one showing a busy street from 1906.

“The Seattle of one hundred years ago was a different world,” she continues,” more than any of us could imagine. Survival was an actual issue, not a TV show. Bandits were usually the ones to make any sort of fortune, including the man who commissioned Rose Red to be built. John P. Rimbauer is who I’m speaking of, an oil tycoon that had his home built at the top of Spring Street for everyone to see and to impress the woman he was courting. His company, Omicron Oil, brought in money all the way up to 1950, when his wife disappeared.”

The picture switched to one of Ellen Rimbauer, one of the most beautiful women Kimberly’s ever seen. ‘ _Build_ ,’ a voice hissed in her head, insistent and harsh _,’ we must build, we must **live**_.’ Kimberly shakes her head, pressing a hand to her forehead as pressure began to build.

“…Trouble started even before there was a house,” Joyce was saying, Kimberly only catching the tail end of the sentence. The picture had changed once more to the bare bones of the house, the wood structure reminding Kimberly of a skeleton. “Construction crews worked twenty-four hours a day, most of them Chinese who would work cheap, only stopping when they ran out of lumber. Even then, it wouldn’t take long for more lumber to arrive and whips to be cracked.

“Unfortunately for the workers, the ground they were digging up seemed to drive people insane. On the same day John brought Ellen out to see the house for the first time, the foreman had an argument with one of the teamsters, which resulted in him getting shot. The teamster, Harry Corbin, dropped the rifle back in the wagon and took off to a Seattle saloon for a drink. The police found him there and dragged him off to jail where he later scratched his eyes out and bled to death. It’s my belief that Harry Corbin may have been Rose Red’s first victim. First _male_ victim, that is.”

“He saw Native Americans,” Kimberly murmurs to no one in particular. “That’s why he scratched his eyes out, to make the visions stop.” Steve reaches out and rests a hand on her arm, giving a comforting squeeze as she forces herself to stay in the present. There was nothing she could do about what happened ninety-five years ago no more than she could change the fact that she had brown eyes.

“What was that, Kimberly?” She looks up and meets Joyce’s gaze without flinching, the headache starting to shift into a full-on migraine.

“I said Corbin was seeing Native Americans in his cell after being found guilty. He felt cursed because he’d been working on top of an old Indian burial ground.” That’s where all the problems stemmed from, disrupting the peace of ancestors far more powerful than some human with a thirst for money. “Sorry to interrupt, Joyce.” She gives Kimberly one last look before continuing with what she’d been saying.

“There’s always been a difference with how the men and women were treated.”

“How do you mean,” the blond man asks.

“All in good time, Nick.” The picture changes to one of a happy family the day of a wedding, the faint sound of clapping heard echoing in Kimberly’s mind. Ellen and John were in the middle, impeccably dressed; four little girls stood in front of them, a preacher in the back, and a young couple to their left. “John Rimbauer and Ellen Gilchrist were married on November twelfth in 1907, just three years after Ellen’s younger sister married Frederick Airey, an up and coming lawyer that worked at Omicron Oil. There was a twenty-year age gap between Ellen and John, nothing too unheard of or scandalous back then.

“By the time they said their vows, Rose Red had been under construction for a year and had already seen three deaths on the property aside from the foreman. One man was decapitated by a sheet of falling glass, another fell from a scaffold and broke his neck, and the third choked to death on a piece of apple.” The picture changes to a completed version of the house, capturing its former beauty. “This is what the house looked like when it was initially completed in 1909 and, in case your memory needs refreshing, _this_ is what it looks like now.” An aerial view, showing the sagging roofs, overgrown ivy, and crumbling chimneys; it was larger than the last picture, larger even than the pictures from the 1950’s.

“It’s as if it metastasized,” the pretty blonde woman says, confusion plain in her voice. Kimberly would be confused too if she didn’t know the history of Rose Red forwards and backwards.

“How many rooms does the house have,” the old man asks, the sound of a pen tapping against paper audible.

“Depends on the day,” Steve says, speaking up for the first time all night. He was slumped in his seat, Nicky settled comfortable in his lap and half-asleep. It was way past his bedtime, but he was making a valiant effort to keep his eyes open. “You can count on Monday and come up with seventy-four only to come back a week later and get eighty-seven.

“But that’s impossible,” Cathy says, not sounding so sure.

“That’s Rose Red, sweetheart. It likes to keep people on their toes.”

“Exactly how many people have disappeared,” Nick asks, derailing Joyce’s schedule even further. There was frustration in the woman’s eyes, her tense shoulders growing tenser the further off-subject the group goes. “Surely there’s an accurate account of that.”

“Twenty-three since the end of the first World War,” she answers.

“I’d say that was impossible if my wife wasn’t so thorough in proof-reading your work,” Emery says, Kimberly smiling sheepishly. She had a tendency to think out loud, which led to her keeping her husband awake until three in the morning while she tried to remember the exact amount of disappearances in total while reading over Joyce’s research.

“I believe I apologized for that already. I brought you a cake the next morning, remember?” Kimberly sure did, she’d ended up falling asleep using her slice of cake as a pillow when her chin slipped off her fist. “Altogether, five men died and eighteen women disappeared. Rose Red has always been particularly fond of the ladies.” Kimberly pinches the bridge of her nose, not entirely sure why Joyce had chosen to keep that particular line in her speech. “Please,” she hurries on to say,” remember that we’re speaking about a house that fell dormant years ago.”

“It better be,” the blonde woman says,” because five thousand dollars isn’t enough if it isn’t.” _Amen to that_.

“When was the last disappearance,” Nick asks. His British accent was nice, reminding Kimberly of her and Emery’s first date; they’d curled up on the couch at his house and watched Jane Eyre, his mother ranting in the background about how Kimberly was a tart who would never steal Patricia’s son away.

“About thirty years ago,” Joyce says, impatience coloring her tone. “There have been no observable phenomena since—”

“Who was the last one,” the blonde interrupts.

“We’ve got a lot to cover, Pam, so we can’t focus on that right now—”

Steve interrupted her this time around, fingers absently tracing the pale blue veins of Kimberly’s wrist. “It was a woman on the Historical Society’s annual tour. She was with the group when they went up the stairs and no one realized she was missing until the tour was completed. They didn’t find her, but they did find her purse.”

“It was torn to shreds and bloody,” Kimberly adds, seeing it as though it was playing out right in front of her. “She heard a little girl singing in one of the parlors and figured a kid was wandering around without supervision, so she went to find her. I don’t know what got the lady in the end, but it wasn’t very nice.”

“Are you two finished,” Joyce asks, raising her brows. Kimberly and Steve share a look over Nicky’s head, then shrug and look back to his girlfriend. “The lady’s name was Liza Albert. Since her disappearance, the house has been closed to tours. Only the descendants and groundskeeper are allowed on the property. Without the psychic energy to feed on, it seemed fall into a coma. Now it’s classified as a—”

“A dead cell,” Emery finishes, probably as sick of hearing that as Kimberly was.

“That’s right.” _If that place is a dead cell, then I’m Elvis_. “Rose Red wasn’t finished when John and Ellen got married and they were in no hurry to set up housekeeping. They passed the time with a year-long honeymoon that took them all over the globe from Egypt to Paris and everywhere in between. John’s favorite part of the tour was Africa.” This picture was of John standing in front of a dead elephant, hunting rifle propped against his shoulder as he smiled broadly. “Ellen didn’t enjoy it quite as much. In fact, she nearly died.”

“Was it malaria,” Pam asks.

“Probably not. In her diary, she called it ‘an unmentionable disease carried by men and suffered by women’.” The next picture is of John with yet another hunting trophy to line the walls of their home. All that death made Kimberly sick to her stomach, not understanding the sport in the slightest. “Doesn’t exactly look prostrate with worry, does he? Thanks to one of the natives in the village named Sukeena, Ellen recovered. When she and John finally took up residence in Rose Red, she was pregnant.” _No she wasn’t, she didn’t get pregnant again until they were fully moved in_. Kimberly had read and reread the letters and diaries of the Gilchrist daughters, including a passage that said Ellen’s first pregnancy ended in a brutal miscarriage somewhere in France. “January 1909, that would’ve been.

“John thought the house was finished, but he didn’t know the house would never be done. Not in his lifetime, not in hers. What makes Rose Red one of the world’s most fascinating psychic artifacts is that the house continued to grow until its death in 1995 or 1996. Until 1950 changes and additions were made according to the will of Ellen Rimbauer, and her will was iron. After 1950, Rose Red grew on its own. A month after they first moved into Rose Red, Frederick and Beatrice Airey joined them, their own manor house burned in an awful fire. In the fall of 1909, Ellen Rimbauer gave birth to a son.”

“Grampy,” Steve remarks, not overly thrilled about it.

“Your grandfather, really,” Pam asks, the smile clear in her tone. She was a happy person, probably great with anyone she met if she was given enough time to get a read on them.

“I’m afraid so.”

“In her diary she wrote,’ I have called him Adam, for he is the first’,” Joyce says. “Sukeena saw her through the difficult labor and Beatrice a year after that, who gave birth to a son she called Alfred. In her diary, Ellen never refers to Sukeena as her servant. First she calls her a friend and later her sister. Ellen’s next child was born in 1911, a daughter with a withered arm she named April. She blamed the defect on her African sickness and her husband’s sexual appetites, she wrote,’ In my mind they are one. Damn all men’.

“In the years following the birth of April, Ellen became convinced that her fever, which recurred periodically, would kill her young. That made her easy game for Madame Stravinsky, otherwise known as Cora Frye to police in San Francisco. Not even Sukeena could convince her the old lady was a fraud. Fake or not, Stravinsky changed Ellen’s life in August of 1914.”

“What did she tell her,” Pam asks.

“That Great-gram wouldn’t die until the house was finished,” Steve answers, bored. “Great-gram told her it _was_ finished and Madame S. told her,’ It isn’t finished until you say it’s finished. Until _you_ say’.”

“Ellen took it seriously,” Joyce continues,” probably she was right to. Everything else aside, she never had another attack of her African fever.”

“It was probably just psychosomatic,” Emery grumbles from the back.

“Probably just PMS, right, Em,” Steve mocks.

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

“‘The remedy for my affliction is most unpleasant,’” Kimberly recites from memory,”’ though as I understand it, is far less worse than it is, or will be, for John, who has no doubt undergone, and will continue to undergo, a series of injections to an area of the male body that is also unmentionable.’” She turns to look back at her husband with a sarcastic smile, just a faint upraising of the corner of her lips. “That still sound like PMS to you, babe?”

“Sounds like Steve better watch out since diseases jump around on his side of the family.”

“Nicholas,” Steve instructs,” cover your eyes really quick.” Nicky does just that, unable to see his godfather holding up the finger that is considered rude in polite company. As it is, Emery just scoffs and slouches further in his seat. “Alright, Nicky, you’re good.” The baby giggles, lowering his hands to play with the buttons of Steve’s shirt.

“That’s nice,” Joyce says with a disapproving frown.

“Sorry, Dee, please continue with what you were saying.” She narrows her eyes at him for a moment, probably not believing he was completely finished at first.

“A new wing started going up the next week.”

“What did her husband have to say about that,” Cathy asks, amused.

“Nothing,” Steve answers again. “She gave him a son in 1909, a daughter in 1911. She had a withered arm, but the son was fine and his heir was all John Rimbauer actually cared about. In his mind, I’d say Ellen had fulfilled her function and could do as she pleased. Would you agree?”

“Yes,” Joyce allows. “Besides, he had affairs of his own to tend to. Ellen continued to make additions to the house until her disappearance in 1950; over forty years of well-financed eccentricity. When she ran out of conventional things to build, she hired a series of contractors and architects to build unconventional stuff.”

“Such as,” the old man probes.

“The so-called Tower Folly was completed in 1921. John jumped to his death from it two years later.”

“Was it suicide,” Nick asks,” or did he run into something he couldn’t deal with?”

“The certificate claimed it was an accidental death.”

“The gossip said suicide or ghosts,” Steve says.

“And my Great-gran’s diary suggested Ellen and Sukeena played a role in it,” Kimberly adds. “Beatrice didn’t go into any detail, but she said that the other two weren’t very sad after the funeral. Neither was she, to be honest.”

“In any case,” Joyce interjects,” during its active years women in Rose Red had a tendency to turn up missing, and men had a tendency to turn up dead.”

“The bad days are over,” the old man comments. “You’re certain about that?”

“I’m positive, Vic.”

“Than what exactly do you want from us,” Nick queries, asking the question that was on everyone’s mind.” She presses a button and the lights come back on, almost blinding after spending the last ten minutes in the dark.

“First off, how about we all get on a first-name basis? That’ll make things a little less difficult between all of us. After all, this is a difficult enough field without us adding to it. People either don’t understand our goals, or refuse to credit our findings. Some people are actively cruel….” She looks lost in her own head, a painful memory that was dragging her down and away from all of them.

“Research goals,” Steve prompts, getting her back on track.

“Right, yeah. My research goals specify measurable psychic phenomena. Hard data, telemetry readouts, and anomalous energy levels. I want readouts that even the most stupid, sarcastic, obtuse member of this so-called scientific department will have to accept. If I get a little crazy on the subject from time to time, please forgive me. I’ve put in a lot of long days.”

“If Rose Red is a dead cell, how much proof can you expect to find there,” Cathy asks.

“Rose Red is much like a dead frog, apply enough electricity and you’re sure to get a twitch. In this case, you people are my electricity. My goal is a modest one, I just want a single twitch. If I get that my reputation will be secure for the rest of my life. More importantly, together we can legitimize a branch of psychology that has been treated like a poor relation for far too long.”

“Better get it this weekend,” Emery quips,” ‘cause Stevie’s saying bye-bye after that.”

“Tech-Star Condominiums, the future,” Steve says, ignoring the sarcasm. “Soon Rose Red will be a distant memory and the ground will be someone else’s problem.”

“You’re gonna let them tear it down,” Cathy asks incredulously. “But it’s a piece of history.”

“History don’t pay no rent the kids are broke. It may not be a noble reason, but it means I can keep my apartment and my godson has food on the table for another two months.” He runs his palm over Nicky’s back as he talks, gaze softening as the baby gives him a toothy grin.

“Are we the whole team,” Vic enquires.

“I was hoping for one more, but that’s looking iffy,” Joyce admits, gaze still roving around the auditorium. “If I have to make do with you six, then I’ll count myself lucky. I’ll see you this Friday at two PM sharp in the parking lot. I’m sure it will be a Memorial Day weekend you won’t soon forget.”

_For all our sakes, I hope you’re wrong about that_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The remedy for my affliction is most unpleasant, though as I understand it, is far less worse than it is, or will be, for John, who has no doubt undergone, and will continue to undergo, a series of injections to an area of the male body that is also unmentionable.” —Page 55, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red


	4. Ghosts in the Dark

It was pouring by the time they made it to Patricia’s house after the orientation. They’d promised to drop by and say hello, but it didn’t take the older woman long to convince Emery that spending the night was best. While Kimberly wasn’t fond of the idea—there were way too many stuffed animals in the house for any sane person to be comfortable with—she wasn’t fond of driving in this weather either.

That’s why she found herself wide awake at three in the morning, staring up at the ceiling and consciously ignoring the elephant in the room. The beast was large and took up the entire nightstand on Kimberly’s side of the bed, its gaze as unseeing as it was unnerving. After the next attempt to fall asleep ends with her throwing the elephant across the room, she gives up on sleeping altogether and shuffles into the kitchen.

It was a sort of unspoken thing in their family, to gather in the kitchen for a snack if something was keeping them up. Work or ghosts stressing you out? Go eat some ice cream. Bills piling up and starting to resemble Mount Doom? Go eat some cake. Stuffed animals about to make you snap like Jack in _The Shining_? Go eat some whipped cream. That’s why it wasn’t shocking when she found Emery there, still fully dressed as though he’d been standing outside in the downpour.

“You okay,” she asks, noting the tension in the line of his shoulders.

“I’m fine,” he answers, shrugging. “It was just Rose Red sending out a warning again. What are you doin’ up this late?” It’s Kimberly’s turn to shrug, opening the fridge and pulling out the spray can of whipped cream. It was one of the cheaper brands, but it still tasted good.

“The stuffed animals were making me antsy.”

“Try living with them for twenty years.” She scrunches up her nose, moving to stand next to him as he took in another mouthful of ice cream. “She tried to start a monkey collection in my room until I dumped the box of them out the window. Now I guess she’s more interested in elephants.”

“I love you, babe, but your mother’s insane.”

“No arguments from me.” They lapse into silence, continuing to snack and glancing around the dark kitchen. Nothing seemed to have changed since last weekend; the same knickknacks lining the shelves, ostentatious tablecloth, and a stove that might break down at any moment. It was little footsteps that broke the silence, Nicky appearing a second later in his footie pajamas that he kept here. “Hey, kiddo.”

Nicholas doesn’t make a sound, pausing just inside the kitchen as he rubbed his eyes. He looked exhausted, like he hadn’t slept well in a week even though he took regular naps and usually slept through the night. He glances between the adults, nods, and shuffles forward over to Emery. Already knowing what he wanted, Emery kneels down with some ice cream already on the spoon, Nicky licking it off automatically.

“Was Gram snoring again,” Kimberly asks, smiling when her son nods. “Why don’t you get one more bite and then go crawl in our bed? We’ll be there to snuggle in a little bit.” Nicky shakes his head firmly, brows furrowed and bottom lip poking out. “What is it, baby?” He brings his hands up next to his face with his fingers curved like claws, baring his teeth in a silent growl. “You…. You saw something scary?”

“What’d you see,” Emery asks, setting the gallon of ice cream aside. Nicky mimes the beast again and then holds one of his arms against his chest. Kimberly’s heart dropped into her stomach, forced to set the whipped cream down before it slipped out of her shaking hands. “A little girl?” Another nod, his little hands falling back to his sides. “Do you see her a lot?” A shake of his head this time that had his matted curls swaying.

“Nicholas, I want you to have your listening ears on.” He nods, cupping his ears like he did every day in school. It was a trick his teacher had come up with to get the kids’ attention, listening ears meaning what she was about to say was important. “That little girl you saw can’t hurt you, okay? She can’t do anything to you.”

“Mommy’s right. That little girl just likes to scare people.” Nicky chews on his lip, brown eyes glancing around and focusing on something near the backdoor. Kimberly and Emery follow his gaze, Kimberly spotting a faint outline of the blonde girl. She didn’t see the gaunt form that Emery did or the perfect image that Nicky did, hers was fuzzy and out of focus. “Make a shooing motion.” He does so, the image blowing away like sand caught in a strong breeze.

“And that’s all you have to do from now on. They have no choice but to obey you out here.” _Inside those iron gates of Rose Red is another matter, they have their own rules there_. “Think you can sleep now?” He shrugs, playing with the black zipper of his pajamas. “How about we all try since you have school tomorrow?” Emery puts everything back in the fridge while Kimberly scoops their son up in her arms, barely registering that he was getting heavier.

The trio move to their bedroom in the back of the house, curling up in the Queen-sized bed with the quilt drawn up to their chins. Nicky was snuggled between them, one of his hands gripping Kimberly’s tank top and the other tangled in Emery’s hoodie. Since they didn’t have pajamas they’d been forced to improvise, Kimberly ditching her skirt while Emery just decided to sleep in his jeans and hoodie.

It didn’t take long for Nicky to begin snoring, lost somewhere in dreamland where everything was okay and no ghosts were lurking. Kimberly tried her hardest, mostly focusing on the way Emery’s hand was warm on her hip, thumb rubbing circles over the bare skin.

“We don’t have to do this, you know,” he says after a while, voice barely more than a whisper.

“I can’t let Steve go in there without backup.” She doesn’t open her eyes as she runs her fingers up his arm, taking comfort in the warmth. “And we really need that ten thousand dollars since business at the shop is about to slow down until classes start up again. You should stay with Nicky.”

“And let you go into that monster of a house with Joyce leading the way? Hell no. I vowed to protect you when we got married and I intend to keep that one.” She smiles a little, a tried one that was hard to manage. “We’ll get through this, Kim, and then the three of us are gonna take a vacation to somewhere warm.”

“Louisiana’s great this time of year.”

“That’s settled, then. We’ll spend a week in Louisiana rooting through thrift stores, eating fish, and punching alligators in the face if they get too close.”


	5. This Inhuman Place

The rest of the week passed too quickly for Kimberly’s liking, the three days spent packing and making sure Nicky had everything he could possibly want over the long weekend. In all, there were three bags and only one of them was actually clothes while the other two were toys and the pillow he refused to leave behind. All too soon, they were parking in front of the college and it was time to say goodbye.

“Don’t forget that his naps are always at noon,” Kimberly says as she gets out of the car, shouldering her bag as she goes,” and that he’s allergic to peanuts.”

“I know how to take care of my grandson,” Patricia snaps. “I _did_ raise a fine boy after all and Nicky’s just like him.” Kimberly rolls her eyes, helping her son out of his booster seat and then out of the old Volvo. Much like everything else, the car looked ready to break down at a moment’s notice, but only she seemed worried about it. She sets Nicky down and straightens his Lion King shirt, tickling his sides to hear him laugh.

“Be a good boy for Gram, alright?” He gives a thumbs-up, eyes twinkling. He was excited at the prospect of a weekend with his gram, no doubt looking forward to all the shopping they’d be doing. “I love you so much, Nicky.” He touches his heart and then Kimberly’s, hand warm through the thin material of her shirt.

“Hey, Nicky,” Emery asks, bending down to see him better,” can I get some sugars before I have to go?” Nicholas launches himself up into Emery’s arms, planting a kiss on his cheek and giggling when it’s returned.

“Get your horse out of my car, Kimberly,” Patricia demands, ruining the family moment. Scowling, Kim gives a short whistle and Bear jumps out of the car. Stopping at her waist, Bear was the largest dog Kimberly’s ever owned and she was glad to have him. Of course, most of her pride for the Siberian Husky came from the fact that it never obeyed her mother-in-law. “I don’t see how you can stand that thing.”

“He’s a good dog,” she says, patting his head affectionately. “Ain’t he, Nicky?” The four year old runs over as soon as he’s back on his feet, wrapping his arms around Bear’s neck. Bear nuzzles against him, tail thumping against the sidewalk. “Give me some kisses, honey.” Nicky gives her a kiss and then goes back to hugging the dog. “I think he’s more upset over the fact that we’re taking Bear with us.”

“Well, I’d probably miss that dog too if I had you as a mother.” Kimberly, to her credit, didn’t bite the woman’s head off. Instead she clips on Bear’s leash and carefully unwinds her son’s fingers from the coal-black fur.

“I guess we should get going.” The four other psychics were waiting a yard or so away, gathered on the sidewalk near the large van Steve had rented for the weekend. They were looking on at the display, Cathy waving at Nicky and laughing when he repeats the motion enthusiastically. Emery shoulders his pack and makes to start walking only to have his mother call out.

“Don’t make me chase you, Emmy!”

“Mom, I’m okay,” he assures her. They get three feet before she latches onto Emery’s sleeve and yanks him to a stop.

“Oh yes, you’re _always_ okay. Now, listen to me.” As she starts in on instructions, Kimberly sends Nicky a wink and then moves over to join the group. She’s learned from experience that there’s no stopping Patricia from laying down the rules and she’d rather mingle with strangers than listen in.

“Is she always like that,” Nick asks, nodding towards the scene.

“If you think that’s bad, then you should’ve seen her reaction the first time Emery stayed at my place. I thought her head was going to explode.” He smirks, reaching out and running his fingers through Bear’s soft fur.

“…And stay away from that blonde girl,” Patricia was saying, voice louder than before. “You already married one tramp, I don’t need you shacking up with another.” Pam gives her a look of offense and Kimberly shrugs, used to the barbs after seven years.

“She’s saying that because you’re pretty.”

“Does she always talk about you like that,” Pam asks.

“The only compliment I’ve ever received from her was when I gave birth to Nicky. Even then, she said she was surprised someone like me could make something so precious.” She looks down at her shoes when Patricia kisses Emery, not understanding why he wouldn’t stand up for himself. He had no problems defending himself around anyone else, but it was like Patricia still owned part of his brain or something.

“I see new frontiers opening up in abnormal psychology,” Nick quips,” how exciting.” Kimberly rolls her eyes, scowling up at the blond as Emery makes his way over to them with Patricia still yelling in the background. The only solace Kimberly had was that Nicky was being strapped back into his booster seat. “Gosh, the day before summer camp must have been a busy time in the Waterman household.”

“Shut up,” Emery snaps, still trying to get his mother’s lipstick off his lips.

“Babe, he was joking,” Kimberly says. She takes the tissue from him and finishes wiping off the lipstick so he could stop worrying about at least one thing. “I know you’re stressed, but you shouldn’t take it out on other people. We talked about this.”

“I know, I know.” But he was still grumpy and she didn’t want the bad mood to affect her own. She pats his cheek and looks back to the others with a friendly smile.

“He didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Bad dreams,” Vic asks, bushy brows raised.

“Something like that, yeah.” Nicky had started to see more and more of Rose Red’s little visitors, leading to a long night spent half asleep on the couch with a crying four year old nestled against him. Kimberly would’ve helped, but one of her dreams had grabbed her tight and refused to let her go until Emery shook her awake that morning. “Let’s just say that a certain little boy wasn’t having a good night.”

“Aw, poor little guy,” Pam frowns. Their attention is captured when Professor Miller strides right over to the van like he owned the entire campus. That’s probably how he felt too, that everyone was trash if they didn’t share his views or surname. Well-off or not, his personality resembled a sewer rat. Kimberly scoffs and looks away, arms crossed over her chest.

“Hello,” a pretty brunette woman greets,” are you the group?” Kimberly’s gaze falls on the newcomers, mustering up a friendly smile when she spots the teenager standing beside the woman. The woman was around the same height as Kimberly, her dark hair barely brushing the shoulders of her coat and a shy smile present on full lips. The teenager had longer, lighter hair and a dimple in her chin, slim fingers playing with a small Raggedy Andy doll.

“The Rose Red group?” At the woman’s nod, Pam continues and shakes the woman’s hand. “That’s us. I’m Pam Asbury. This is Cathy Kramer,” She urges Cathy forward and the two women shakes hands, the cycle continuing until introductions were finished.

“I’m Sissy Wheaton,” the woman says once she can get a word in. “This is my little sister Annie.” She looked relieved to have found the group, and exhausted after some late nights. _Partying? No, she isn’t the type for that_. She probably just worked long hours and then came home and worked even more to take care of her sister considering the teen was far away in her own head somewhere. _Like Rapunzel in her tower, locked away from the world until she lets down her hair_. “I was sure we were going to miss you guys. Traffic was horrible.”

“We’re very glad you didn’t,” Nick speaks up. He gives her a dry smile that matched his sense of humor to a tee. Annie nods towards the dog and Kimberly gives an encouraging smile in return.

“You can pet him if you want,” she says, making sure to keep her voice soft. “He may look scary, but he’s actually a big softie.” The teen holds out a hand, letting Bear sniff it before she cards her fingers through his fur. Bear’s tail wagged back and forth at the attention, his head leaning further into her palm.

“Wow,” Sissy mumbles,” usually animals react differently around her.”

“He was raised around a group of psychics, so he’s used to the differences.” And boy was Kimberly glad for that because Bear had helped pull her out of the past more than once when she and Nicky first came home from the hospital. A little nip at her hand and she was thrown back into the present right before her son would start crying.

“That’s great because she loves animals. Isn’t that right?” Annie answers with a vague smile, her emotions blurry around the edges and slippery. Kimberly couldn’t get a good read on them or any memories that went along with them, but contentment seemed to be what she felt most right then as Bear licked her fingers.

“Sister,” Joyce grins, almost jogging over to the group with Steve walking behind. “Or do you prefer Rachel?”

“Either is fine.” Behind them, the wheels of some bikes began to spin by themselves, no breeze or passengers around to make them go. “Oh, just stop it, Annie.” At the murmured order, the wheels stop as abruptly as they started with only a faint squeak of well-oiled chains.

“Good God, she’s retarded,” Emery grumbles under his breath. Kimberly delivers a sharp slap to the back of his head, her withering glare letting him know he’d screwed up.

“If you keep your psychological evaluation of little Miss Wheaton to yourself, we won’t ask you any embarrassing questions about your relationship with your mother,” Nick tells him with a hard stare, voice low so that no one outside the group would overhear.

“How would you feel is someone said that about our son,” Kimberly adds. “All she was doing right then was telling us what she could do in the only way she knew how, Emery, and if you talk bad about her again, then you’ll be staying with Patricia for a week. Understood?” He dips his head in a nod, staring down at his shoes instead of meeting her glare. “Good.” There was a second of quiet where Kimberly took a deep breath to reign in her temper, then Joyce was talking again.

“Folks,” she says, smiling like an excited school girl,” I think we’re ready.” The group piles into the van, Bear seated in the floorboard at Annie’s feet and relishing the extra attention since Nicky wasn’t around to provide it. The teenager seemed to like it as well, giving her mind something to focus on besides the doll she clutched against her chest.

“I get that you’re cranky,” Kimberly whispers to her husband as they pulled out of the parking lot,” but you can’t take it out on a little girl like that.”

“I know,” he whispers back, still not meeting her gaze. “I just didn’t get much sleep last night and we’re going to the freaking House on Haunted Hill where I probably won’t get much sleep either.” He lets out a gusty sigh, running his fingers through his shaggy hair. “I’ll find a way to apologize to Annie later, okay?”

“She’s not going to understand it if you speak, she’s far away from us. Hell, I’m pretty sure the only person she makes an effort to understand is her big sister.” Rachel Wheaton’s emotions were crystal clear, carried on a tidal wave of memories that called out to anyone that could hear them.

The younger woman wasn’t psychic in the least, but she was instinctive and seemed to know every trick there was that ensured Annie was comfortable. Annie, on the other hand, had what Stephen King called a shine to her, glowing like a spotlight even amongst the other psychics in the van. If anyone could make Rose Red spring into wakefulness, it’s little Annie Wheaton and that’s exactly what Joyce has in mind.

The drive to the house only lasted an hour, most of that time was spent in traffic as Seattle came to life around them and people headed off for the long weekend. All too soon, the massive house came into view and Kimberly’s stomach threatened to expel the dry toast she’d had for breakfast. The wrought iron gates were still beautiful despite the vines crawling up them, an elaborate R welded into either side.

 _Do they stand for Rimbauer or Rose Red_ , Kimberly wonders as they come to a stop a few feet away. _Or maybe something else entirely, like hieroglyphics over tombs that announced a nasty curse waiting for anyone who stepped inside_.

“It seems to be looking at us,” Cathy says, voice quivering.

“It is, Cathy,” Nick confirms from the front seat. Kimberly could feel an old memory tugging at her, trying to coax her into letting go of her grasp on the present. It was different than the usual attempts, this one her own memory instead of a relative’s as her eyes roll up in her head and the scene plays out in sepia tones.

_The garden that stretched before her was overrun by weeds and tall grass, scratching at her bare legs as she kept walking. She was looking for something, something important, but she wasn’t sure what that was yet. There was a voice, faint like it was being carried on a breeze, calling her name and drawing her towards the woods on the right side of the property._

_“Hello,” she called, big brown eyes trying to catch sight of the mysterious person. “Who’s there?” There came a rustling of leaves and then a man was standing in front of her, smiling brightly as though he’d just seen something funny. Kimberly tilted her head to the side, pigtails moving in unison as she tried to figure the man out. “Are you dead?”_

_“Yes, sweet girl,” he’d answered, voice slightly accented. He was pretty and he wasn’t scary like the people she sometimes saw, more solid than the usual wisps or shadows. But there was something inside her, something that sent tingles up her spine, that told her this man was no more alive than the woman she saw in her dreams. “Did you hear me calling?”_

_“Uh-huh.”_

_“Did anyone else?”_

_“Uh-uh.” She shook her head in the negative, one hand playing with a loose thread on her shorts. “Mama says she don’t hear anything even when the dead people are talkin’ real loud. Steve don’t hear anything either usually, but he heard someone inside.” She turns and points at the massive house rising up out of the earth, bigger even than the castles in her storybook. “He said he was gonna ‘vestigate.”_

_“You must be careful here,” the man said, kneeling down so that she didn’t have to crane her head back to see him. “Promise me that you won’t come back.” He held up his hand and she put hers out as well, letting him shake it like she’d seen her daddy do when he met with someone that worked above him at the library. His hand swallowed the six year old’s, fingers cold as they wrapped around hers._

_“I promise.” She lets her hand drop back to her side, looking beyond him for something. “Do you know what I’m looking for?”_

_“Probably the same thing I am. A beautiful woman with eyes as blue as a butterfly’s wing and a voice as soft as yours.” Kimberly’s cheeks heat up in a blush, her head ducking down to hide a bashful smile. That was exactly what she was looking for now that the words were out there, the pretty woman she saw dancing through her dreams at night. “Tell you what, I’ll keep looking for the both of us and you run on back to the motorcar. I think your aunt’s looking for you.”_

_“Kimberly Anne Ravenwood,” the drunk woman yelled behind her. “Get your little butt over here before I whoop it!” She bit her lip, running as fast as her feet would let her towards the old station wagon parked in the driveway. Aunt Irene and Steve were waiting there, the former swaying on her feet, purse bulging with a few antiques she’d taken out of the house. “Both of you get in, we gotta get back to the apartment before your parents do.”_

_The kids clamored into the backseat, neither saying anything as they stared out the window. They didn’t have to, Kimberly would figure out what happened to Steve later on while she tossed and turned in her bed. Until then, she was content to wave goodbye to the nice man that she’d made a promise to. After all, her mama had told her to always be nice to family and she remembered the man from her dreams about ringing laughter and kind smiles._

Kimberly snaps out of the memory with a gasp, brown eyes immediately focusing on the spot where she’d last seen Frederick Airey. There was no blond man with kind hazel eyes there to greet her, just trees that seemed to keep going forever. “Are you okay,” Emery asks, one hand resting on her knee.

“I’m fine,” she says, though even she knew she didn’t sound convincing. She wasn’t fine, wasn’t anywhere close to fine, and wouldn’t be fine until she was home with her baby in her arms.

She lets out a shaky breath as the gates swing inward and the van pulls into the driveway, circling around what must have been a beautiful fountain once upon a time and parking just a few feet from the front door. As she looked up at the cracked bricks and overgrown weeds, another Stephen King quote came to mind, meant to describe a monstrous hotel yet fitting this behemoth as well.

_This inhuman place makes human monsters._


	6. Birds of a Feather

Getting out of the van proves a little harder than getting in had been, long legs and short ones alike all twisted up in a rush to breathe fresh air. Bear was the last one out, walking alongside Annie as though he thought protecting kids was his sworn duty. Kimberly wasn’t going to complain, smiling as Annie plays with some of the fur atop the dog’s head.

This close, the house seemed even bigger compared to her five feet and five inches, the brick carrying a rosy hue that probably helped Ellen conceive its name. She moves over to the large fountain in the center of the circle drive, plucking a few dead leaves out of the dry basin and letting them float to the ground on a faint breeze.

“Hey, Kimmy, a little help,” Steve calls. She nods, wandering over to where the others had gathered behind the van, divvying up the equipment.

“What are these,” Nick was asking as Kimberly joined them.

“House plans,” Steve explains, handing a case off to Kim and another to Joyce. “They’re probably about as useful as a fourteenth century map of Africa. Nick hands the rolled up plans off to Annie with a kind smile, the teenager accepting them without a word. She was closer to earth it seemed, but still far above the others.

“Flashlights,” Kimberly asks, taking another case from him.

“Yes, and a coil of rope just in case.” The rope is passed on to Cathy, equipment slowly moving down the line as Steve looks down to Annie. “How are you doing, sweetie?” The teen just looks up at him, like she could see everything whirring around in his mind despite the practiced smile to keep the worry at bay. Steve lets out a sharp breath, staring up at one of the upper floors as though lost.

“What is it,” Nick asks in concern. “What do you hear?”

“It knows we’re here.” Kimberly follows his gaze, trying to find anything that could scream loud enough that her cousin could hear it. There wasn’t a psychic bone in his body, but maybe Rose Red was on a wavelength only he could hear. _Well_ , she amends with a glance at the girl standing just behind her, _Steve and Annie, that is_. “It _wants_ us here. God help us. It wants us here.”

She strained to hear anything that Steve could, using all of her senses as she stared up at the house. It wasn’t until she reached out to grasp Steve’s hand that it happened. It came at her all at once, a jumbling of words spoken in a harsh whisper that seemed to echo around them like firecrackers.

‘ _Houses are alive,’_ came a strange, feminine voice. It rose and lowered as though on a breeze, only allowing Kimberly to catch parts of the sentences. ‘ _News from our nerve endings… Having bad dreams…. Blind hate of our humanity_.’ It faded away gradually until not even Steve could hear it.

“It stopped,” Nick says, looking over at the cousins. “I heard it too, but it’s gone now.”

“What,” Joyce demands. “What did you hear?”

“There were words, but they weren’t clear.”

“They were jumbled,” Kimberly supplies. “It was like people were trying to talk over each other.”

“Exactly. Except it was all the same person, I think, a woman or… I dunno, it was hard to grasp onto. What about the rest of you?”

“I might have heard something,” Cathy says, laughing nervously. “It might’ve just been my imagination, though.” She was clutching at a carpet bag like it was the only thing keeping her from bolting, but Kimberly was doing much the same to Steve’s hand. She goes to release it with an apologetic smile, but he holds it tighter. There was panic in his eyes, the olive green darkening as his emotions run riot.

“But what was it,” Joyce demands again, impatient as she turns her gaze back to Steve.

“How should I know,” he asks defensively. “You know as well as I do that the only psychic claim I have is guessing who’ll win on America’s Funniest Home Videos. You’ve got the test results to prove it.” He meets Nick’s stare, trailing off with furrowed brows. “What?” Nick shakes his head, a knowing smiling turning up one corner of his mouth.

“Pam, can you come with me?” Kimberly looks away from the two men and over at the women as they head to the front doors, then down at her shoes. They were simple black flats, the same ones she’s owned for going on three years now and would only throw away when they broke down completely.

“Kimmy, are you okay?”

“I’m about as good as you are,” she answers, picking up the case she’d dropped earlier. She hadn’t even realized it at the time, but now she was hoping nothing inside was damaged that would be taken out of Joyce’s paycheck.

“Emers, old boy,” Nick calls, light tone breaking the growing tension,” why don’t you come give us a hand? It seems to be the butler’s day off.”

“Don’t call me that,” Emery frowns, grip tight on the straps of his pack.

“Hey, I helped the two of you move into your apartment _and_ set up Nicky’s crib,” Steve snaps,” the least you can do is carry a couple of these boxes.” Emery grumbles under his breath, grabbing one of the larger cases almost violently and stalking back to the front doors. “You’d think he’d be a little nicer to the man that watches his kid every other Sunday.”

“You just love tormenting him,” Kimberly replies,” and he loves tormenting you, it’s your thing. I’d rather you two stop the bickering and make it to the pumpkin pie before the fighting starts, but at least you haven’t killed each other yet.”

“They’re about to spend three days together in one house,” Nick quips,” so you’ll know what happened if one of them and a shovel turns up missing.”

“That happens and I murder whoever survived.”

“There’s plenty of space for you to dispose of them.”

“You see, Stevie, me and Nick have a game plan, so you two better keep your tempers in line.” Steve musters up a smile, barely more than a twitching of his lips, but it was a smile all the same and Kimberly would take it. “What you heard just now, with all those voices, it’s probably just because of your family ties to this place. It should stop again when we leave.”

“Comforting, isn’t it? You get to leave your demons behind you while ours cling to us like spider monkeys.” Nick was only joking, the gleam in his eyes made that clear. It was dry like all the others, but appreciated. They all needed a good dose of humor if they were going to survive the trauma of this place. “So, how old were you when you got lost in there?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Steve deflects, straightening up from setting another case on the ground.

“You must have been around seven since your cousin was six in her memory. Strange how they intertwined like that, each meeting a relative that was lost on the grounds. Kimberly’s experience wasn’t as haunting as yours was since it was out in the open, but you were trapped in a room with colored light. You felt as though you might choke on the smell of sawdust.”

 _It clung to everything_ , Kimberly remembers, _his clothes and memories, like it didn’t want to let him go_.

“It didn’t, Kimberly.” She glances over at Nick again, grip on the cases tightening a fraction. _Mind reader, then. Good to know_. “It wanted him back then. What happened to you in there, Steve? What did you see that made you so frightened?”

“Nothing,” he says, trying to sound firm. “I didn’t see or experience anything.” He grabs up one of the heavier cases and stomps off to the front doors, Nick and Kimberly watching him go. Nick steps up to Annie, patting her shoulder with a smile.

“You know, don’t you? As do you.” He glanced at Kimberly over his shoulder, the knowing smile front and center. “You can’t quite make it out from all the memories you have stored away in little boxes, but you know it’s there.”

“Sawdust,” she says, nodding,” and something about high turrets or maybe it was towers.” She shakes her head, squinting up at the manor house. “My great-grandpa never smelled like that when I met him.”

“He smelled like flowers that bloom in summertime.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“It means he was a good person in life. The good ones always smell like our favorite things.” Kimberly smiles at the thought, searching through the vague memories that weren’t hers and usually finding the blond man with a smile aimed at his wife and children. “Come on, let’s go join the others.” Nick leads the way to the front doors, Kimberly and Annie following behind without a backwards glance.

“What were you two talking about,” Emery asks when she’s standing beside him. He wasn’t jealous, not the type for that, just curious as she meets his gaze.

“Psychic stuff,” she answers honestly. “And about how we could bury you and Steve in the backyard if you both keep fighting.”

“You can’t bury me in the backyard, I’m the only one that can get our son to sleep.”

“I knew there was a reason I kept you around.” The front doors swing inward, revealing to everyone a massive entryway. Stone columns supported archways far above their heads, the floors made of fine wood with black marble cutting through it to make large squares, a beautiful chandelier hanging above three short steps that led to a raised portion of the room. There was a sturdy table set up there with more equipment already set out on it, two curving staircases seeming to grow out of the floor and meet again at the second landing, and a short hall stretching on between the two.

On the walls of the entryway, visible between the massive columns, were paintings of the Rimbauer family; Ellen, John, Adam, and April all dressed in their best clothes and smiling for a painter long since dead. Closer to the table was a painting of two small children, a little boy showing off a missing tooth as he grins and a younger girl with a dimple in her cheek. Where the little boy favored the Gilchrist looks with dark brown hair and gorgeous blue eyes, the girl resembled her father with hazel eyes and blonde hair straight as a pin.  

 _Alfred and Ellie Airey, eight years apart even if they didn’t look it since Alfred still boasted a youthful face. He would be ten in the picture while little Ellie, named for her aunt and godmother, was two_. Ellen had probably been behind the painting being done, spoiling all the children as much as she could get away with.

There were animal heads mounted along the walls as well, a parlor branching off on the left that had more doors that led to even more rooms. The house was like a labyrinth, stretching on and on forever with no hope of reaching its center. On the raised portion of the floor were marble statues in little alcoves along the walls and a grandfather clock that looked pristine, the wood dusted and gold-inlayed hands polished to a shine beneath the glass.

“My aunt and uncle used to play in here,” Kimberly murmurs to no one, turning around in a slow circle to take it all in. “They’d chase each other up and down the stairs and under the table until they couldn’t breathe.”

“And then they’d beg their mother for a snack,” Steve adds with a laugh. “If their parents were anything like ours, then they weren’t allowed those snacks until they promised to calm down.” Steve’s attention drifts to somewhere on Kimberly’s right and she follows suit, finding Vic holding up the remote that opened the gates. “The caretaker must have left it here when he let in the guys that brought the equipment.”

“Won’t he miss it,” Vic asks, shaking the remote a little for emphasis.

“Francois probably won’t even realize he left it here. He’s pushing eighty and we’re lucky if he remembers to come by every two weeks to check that the place is still locked up. Besides, the gates will be gone after September.”

“And so will the house,” Kim states, setting the cases down on the floor. “Thank God for small miracles.” It’s not until she felt Steve nudging her that she looked away from Vic, catching the tail end of a dirty look from Joyce. The woman hated that Rose Red would be turned into condos, but she also didn’t have random ghosts showing up in her living room either.

“There’s a flashlight for each of you,” she says, changing the subject. “I suggest you keep it on your person at all times.” Steve hands them out, pulling them from one of the cases he’d brought in.

“The power’s fine most of the time,” he explains,” but it’s fickle.”

“I have a feeling that looking for the fuse box wouldn’t help us any,” Nick quips.

“Puget Sound Energy wouldn’t do us much good either.”

“But what about the equipment,” Cathy asks worriedly. “Wouldn’t a power outage ruin anything you document?”

“No, everything would switch over to battery,” Joyce assures her. “I think it’s time we got started.” Kimberly glances up at the second landing, spotting a faint shadow as it darts down the stairs, her gaze following it to the doors at the other end of the room right as a strong breeze started up. The psychic wind carried dead leaves inside with it, blowing Annie’s hair this way and that while Bear’s fur remained untouched.

“Where’s Annie,” Sister panics. She spins on her heal in time for the doors to slam shut with a resounding _crack_ through the entryway, the wind disappearing the second the task was finished. The teenager was unbothered by the noise, her only reaction to reach out a hand for Bear to nuzzle against.

There’s a softer noise and then Joyce is speaking into her tape recorder. “Friday afternoon, 3:17 p.m. We’ve just experienced our first paranormal phenomenon—a phantom draft.” She clicks _stop_ on the recorder and pockets it before looking to the rest of the group. When the wind had started up, everyone shuffled closer to each other and ended up almost shoulder-to-shoulder. _Birds of a feather, indeed_.

“Joyce, how about a tour,” Pam suggests. The timid expression pointed towards the blonde wanting nothing more than to run as far and fast as she could, but there was an excitement beneath it that Pam was falling back on comfortably.

“Right, let’s begin.”


	7. The Grand Tour

“The only thing I insist on is that you don’t go off exploring on your own,” Joyce says as she pushes open a pair of doors. “The geography of Rose Red can seem unstable.” _That’s an understatement_.

“We could always sleep in groups,” Pam suggests. “Us girls can sleep in a room like in summer camp.” The excitement was gaining ground, which was a good thing for Pam. If only Kimberly could summon the same emotion she might actually get through this weekend without losing her mind.

“I’ll sleep with Emery and after midnight we’ll raid the fridge,” Nick jokes, draping an arm around Emery’s shoulders. Emery gives a sarcastic smile before shrugging the arm off, moving closer to his wife. He didn’t normally take jokes well, but he was better than he had been when they first met.

“The bedrooms are perfectly safe,” Joyce assures the group. “I just don’t want you all wandering around and getting lost. It’s a big house as you well know and groups are safer in the halls.” The next doors Joyce opens lead into the kitchen, the checkered tiles on the floor shining under the overhead lights. “I think you’ll find this interesting.”

“You could make Thanksgiving dinner for a hundred people in here,” Cathy remarks, looking around with her eyes wide in fascination. Just like the other rooms in the house, the kitchen was massive with a door on the other side of the room that led out to the solarium.

“Maybe after the place was fumigated,” Emery says with a criticizing gaze.

“Aren’t you a charmer,” Nick comments. “It’s no wonder you managed to woo Kimberly all those years ago.”

“Was I talking to you?”

“Easy, babe,” Kimberly says with a stern look. “No need to be snotty.” He makes a noise but doesn’t say anything, sending one last glance around the room before they followed the others into the solarium. There was one nearly identical to this at Summer’s End, though connected to the main parlor and consisting of only flowers instead of flowers and herbs.

“Ellen Rimbauer called this the ‘health room’,” Joyce explains as they all file inside. Most of the plants were dead or in the process of dying, the smell of decay hanging in the air like smog. “We would call it a greenhouse or solarium.” There were white wicker chairs and wooden tables taking up a cleared space near the center of the room, rotting and covered in leaves. “A railroad executive named George Meader, a friend and drinking buddy of John, died in here after the end of the first World War. According to a doctor he was stung by a bee and died of an extreme allergic reaction.”

“Remind me not to spend time in here,” Vic whispers, nodding towards a beehive. Kimberly’s gaze lingers on it for a moment, straining to make out any buzzing sounds.

“As I told you a few days ago, men didn’t do so hot here in Rose Red’s youth.”

“Way to reassure the menfolk,” Nick comments.

“I’m sure you have nothing to worry about. Just don’t forget the buddy system we all learned about in pre-school. If you see someone that doesn’t belong, then do the stranger danger routine and we’ll all come running.” As they got closer to the hive, Vic and Kimberly could see the bees flying around it; thankfully they seemed preoccupied and left the psychics alone.

“Hey, hold on a second,” Steve says, striding ahead a few feet and scooping something up off the ground. He turns with the object in hand, holding up a cell phone with the red light blinking to show a missed called. “What’s this?”

“Did the caretaker leave that, too,” Vic asks dubiously.

“Considering Francois is totally against phones of any kind, I highly doubt it,” Kim speaks up, arms crossed over her chest. “The equipment guys didn’t leave the entryway in the front of the house and the other workers wouldn’t come in here.”

“Should we call the last dialed number and ask them if their refrigerator’s running,” Nick asks, only half joking. Steve presses redial and holds the phone against his ear, the group waiting with baited breath to see who answered. After a moment, Steve gains an amused smile, shaking his head.

“Hello, Professor Miller,” he says, dodging Joyce as she makes a go for the phone,” this is Joyce Reardon’s friend, Steven Rimbauer. We seem to have found a piece of your property here in Rose Red. Given that we saw you right before we left, I’m confident enough to say you didn’t drop it yourself. However, I’ve got a pretty good idea of who _did_. The guy who wrote that trashy story in the newspaper, right? I know that trespassing isn’t a very serious crime and abetting a trespasser is probably even less serious, but I bet your dignity would take a huge blow if nothing else. Guess who’s gonna be the cover boy for next week’s newspaper? Have a nice day.”

Kimberly claps when her cousin snaps the phone closed, pride swelling in her chest. If there was one thing her mother had passed on to both children, it was the proper way to be an asshole without coming across as too cocky. She’d be proud to know that lesson had stuck even if the one about not eating in bed hadn’t.

“How can you be sure that that was the Professors phone,” Cathy asks, looking as unsure as she had about the whispering earlier.

“Who else would send someone in here,” Joyce demands. “The proof is in the contacts list if you want to take a peek. Fifty bucks says one of them is that son of a bitch, Bollinger.” Bollinger, the college student that had been lurking in the back of the auditorium and snapped a picture right as the group had formed a circle. He was a cockroach, annoying and always seeming to be underfoot at the worst time.

“If the reporter had the phone, then where’s the reporter,” Emery queries.

“Maybe the house ate him,” Pam says. “That’s what it’s known for after all.”

“The more likely scenario is something paranormal happened and he ran off with his tail between his legs,” Joyce soothes, shrugging it off. “And if he’s still sneaking around, then we’ll find him before the weekend is over. Come on, group, let’s—”

“Are you sure that we shouldn’t notify someone?”

“Why? If he’s here, then he’s trespassing like Steve said. If we get the cops involved we’re apt to find ourselves with half a dozen officers stomping through the house and roiling up the atmosphere and he’ll win. That pig Miller will win in spite of everything and I won’t let that happen. I refuse!” Her voice had started to rise as she spoke and the last sentence was almost yelled, Steve putting a hand on her arm.

“Whoa, it’s okay,” he assures her,” we’re not letting him win.”

“And Bollinger will get a stern talking to before we throw him out on his ear,” Nick adds in reassurance. The others echo the sentiment, not willing to release the hooks they were sinking in for anyone that threatened to tear it all away. Joyce smiles in relief, the joint belief the group had in her adding some confidence.

“Care to enlighten us about the rest of the house?”

“It’d be my pleasure,” she nods, still smiling. They all turn and head back the way they had come, reentering the kitchen with its two prepping tables and shining tile walls. Unlike the floor, the tiles making up the walls were small and white, no cracks or stains marring the surface. Joyce hops up on one of the tables, the spool of rope placed next to her and still bound loosely.

“I believe we’re lingering in the kitchen because Joyce wants to tell you about my great-aunt April. Go ahead, Joyce.”

“Are you both sure?”

“I never even knew the kid so go on.” Joyce turns her gaze to Kimberly and the brunette shrugs a shoulder, not caring one way or another. She’d never met anyone involved in the situation, not even when she drove past in order to get home at night. Sure, she caught glimpses of a sailor dress out of the corner of her eye, but she’d always done her best to ignore April.

“April was six years old when she disappeared. Her older brother, Adam, was away at boarding school and her three cousins were visiting. Kim, you wanna fill them in on that account?”

“It was 1917 and my great-gram Beatrice wanted to come visit for a weekend and let the kids play. She and Ellen would talk in one of the parlors about whatever came to mind while John and Frederick drank in the study and pretended they actually liked each other. Alfred, while sad Adam wasn’t around, was just happy to have another child close to his age to play with.”

“Wait,” Cathy interrupts,” Adam was already at boarding school? Wasn’t he a little young?”

“He was eight,” Joyce informs her with a nod. “John held no trust for Rose Red and wanted his heir far away from here despite how much Ellen protested. It was one of the few times he actually told her _no_ about something. This—” She gestures vaguely around at the kitchen “—was the last place April Rimbauer was ever seen.”

“She and Alfred were having a tea party near the pantry door over there, where they’d been most of the morning after breakfast,” Kimberly fills in, able to picture it like it was her own memory. Two children sitting a small table with china tea cups grasped gently in their hands.

“That’s right. Sukeena was watching them as she got things ready for lunch. She stepped into the pantry for what she swore was no more than thirty seconds, just long enough to gather a few potatoes, and April was gone when she came out. She could hear April singing close by, but it was cut off by a scream that had everyone running.”

“My great-uncle witnessed it all and was asked by his parents and April’s about what happened, but he refused to talk. It was like he blocked the entire event out in order to keep going. He was catatonic for three days before he snapped out of it and asked why his aunt Ellen was crying.”

“While he was catatonic, fifty men searched the house and grounds. They found nothing, not even a lock of hair or a thread from her dress.”

“Great-grandfather was convinced Sukeena had something to do with it,” Steve interrupts. “He had her taken downtown to be interrogated. Ellen objected in the strongest possible terms, but John respectfully declined to listen. Sukeena was taken to a small basement room and questioned for no less than fifty hours; no sleep, no food, no bathroom breaks, and no mercy. She ended up convincing them that she was innocent, but it cost her three teeth, a broken nose and a broken wrist. She was eventually allowed to return home again. Well, the only home she had left.”

“When can we go upstairs,” Emery asks, looking to Joyce for an answer. “I hear that’s where all the weird stuff happens.”

“Aw,” she teases,” your read all my papers.”

“No, my wife reads aloud and it was either listen to that or try to drown her out with Scrubs.”

“Hey, I’ll take it.” She slides down off the table and Emery follows suit beside her, both smiling. It was rare to see them getting along—even rarer than him and Steve agreeing on something—so Kimberly wasn’t about to screw it up. “Let’s head upstairs and see what we can find.” The rooms have changed when they leave the kitchen behind, a staircase coated in dust and cobwebs winding up far above.

“I didn’t notice that one before.”

“Neither did I,” Nick says, serious for once. “So it’s begun.”

“I think there should be an inscription on the front gate,” Kim tells them, staring up at the sharp geometrical points of the balusters. “‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here’.”

“It would certainly fit in with the mythology.”

“Nick,” Joyce calls from the front. “Could you tie the end of your rope to that pole there? If nothing else, it’ll help us come back the way we came when we’re done upstairs.” He nods and secures it without a comment, pulling on it to make sure it would hold.

“Can’t we just bring the plans with us,” Cathy asks, unaware of how naïve she truly was. Like Steve had said earlier, the plans were about as useful as a knife in a gun fight.

“You can’t trust the plans in a house like this,” Steve explains.

“And it’s only a safety measure,” Joyce continues. “So follow me and prepare to be amazed.” Much like the rest of the house, the stairs seemed to go on forever, forming a perfect square if you looked down from the top. The further up they went, the more changes Kimberly took in, the wood paneled walls turning to rough brick and the opulence dimming a little as they left behind the part of the house guests would use.

Waiting at the tip-top was a simple door that led into a hallway Kimberly had never seen before. It was disorienting at first, things made small to look as if they were far away when you actually had to duck to avoid whacking your head on one of the wooden arches.

“Ellen called this the perspective hallway,” Joyce announces, sounding more like a tour guide than anything. _And if you look to your right, you’ll see the mangled corpse of a poor maid that John Rimbauer wanted rid of_. The thought wasn’t a cherished one, but it probably wasn’t far off the mark either. “It was her first major addition that an architect didn’t design.”

“She made it up herself,” Cathy guesses, smiling. The excitement was starting to seep into her as well, blue eyes gleaming behind her glasses. “Way to go, Ellen.”

“Actually, it was Sukeena.”

“Her maid,” Emery asks, sounding doubtful.

“Her _companion_. I detailed this fact in my papers, Emery.” He rolls his eyes, sending his wife a look of exasperation that their son mimicked to a tee. Pam moves ahead of the group, trying the child-sized doorknobs of the equally small doors, moving from one side of the hall to another with the hope that one would open to reveal something magical.

“It’s so wild,” the blonde says with a bright grin. “It’s like something in a fun house.” She’s careful to avoid bumping her head, moving back to the right side of the hall and jiggling another knob. The group pauses to watch, Kim reaching out to run her fingers over one of the crests etched into the oak wood. It was stained a dark red, just a touch darker than the ruby red velvet papering the walls, smooth beneath her touch. _Did my ancestors walk through here once upon a time? Were they happy?_

‘ _We should go back downstairs_.’ The whispered words snagged Kimberly’s attention and she turns slightly to find the person that spoke. There, by one of the benches that were spaced evenly against the walls, was a young couple. Probably in their mid-twenties by now, the woman sporting blonde hair done up in a casual bun at the base of her skull and the man broad-shouldered with the most gorgeous green eyes that Kimberly’s ever seen. _‘It’s dangerous to wander.’_

 _‘Relax, Ellie, it’s only a house. And besides, I think I can stand up to any illusions this beast of a house throws our way_.’ The man smiled and cupped one of her cheeks and the woman smiled in return before both of them dissolved away as though they’d never been there in the first place. Which, she supposes, was partly true. Her grandparents had stayed here a short time while visiting Steve’s grandparents and Nana Ellie had told Kimberly all kinds of stories about the things she’d seen while here.

“Bollinger!” She’s tugged back to reality by Steve shouting, head poked inside one of the rooms. A whole section of the wall had swung inward, revealing a bed carved of heavy wood and draped with moth-eaten blankets, dust motes floating around in a beam of sunlight. “Hey, Bollinger, are you in there?” As if the house was answering, a gust of wind came screaming out, blowing clothes and hair back with a force that was almost enough to steal the breath out of her lungs.

“No,” Annie screams, walking right up to the doorway without a trace of her earlier shyness. “You stop that!” The door slams shut with a _bang_ that echoed in her ears, Kimberly groaning as she took an unsteady step backwards.

“Who else votes that we don’t yell into random bedrooms anymore,” she asks, raising her hand.

“That’s one club I’ll sign up for,” Pam says with a nod. “Do you think that screaming thing happens a lot around here?” Kimberly shrugs, looking around for any sign of the things that go bump in the night.

“With all the deaths and disappearances that have added up over the years, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dracula was holed up around here somewhere.” And, in the spirit of honesty, a Hollywood vampire hanging upside down in some downstairs closet would hardly be the weirdest thing to have ever happened inside Rose Red.

“Sukeena was the first person to hear Rose Red scream shortly after April disappeared,” Joyce picks back up. “In the mid 60’s, a team of scientists spent time investigating Rose Red and heard the house scream several times. They managed to record a couple of them, though they don’t sound half as impressive on tape.”

“What conclusion did they come to,” Nick asks.

“That they were hearing the sound of underground water that was amplified by the old water pipes that run under this part of Seattle.”

“Underground water,” Vic checks dubiously.

“When faced with this sort of phenomenon, people tend to protect their belief systems ferociously. Isn’t that right, Kimberly?”

“My mother did,” she confirms. “Anytime I’d come up and ask her about the nice woman I saw walking through dusty halls in my dream, she’d tell me to stop fantasizing and go pray. I think that’s part of the reason she gave me this.” Kimberly fiddles with the small cross that hung from around her neck, the black gems sparkling where they caught the light. “She was afraid that I’d end up like the rest of our family and I’m pretty sure she’d have a fit if she knew where I was right now.”

“Did she ever believe you about being psychic,” Cathy asks, leaning forward slightly to see her around Sister.

“I think so, yeah. We had a few other psychics in our family, dating all the way to my great-grandfather, but they tended to die tragically. My father helped me the best he could, but he didn’t really understand why I could do the things I did.” She lets out a long breath, remembering the nights Samuel had cuddled with her in the living room, just listening to her describe the things she’d seen while asleep. “Isn’t there a reason you brought us up here, Joyce?”

“Yes, right,” Joyce nods, rolling with the obvious segue. “The hallway we’re standing in right now is the last place Ellen Rimbauer was ever seen. John and Ellen moved in on January fifteenth, 1909 when Ellen was just barely in her twenties. She marked the occasion by wearing the same white dress she had on the day they arrived. For many of those years Ellen threw a party on January fifteenth and everybody who was anybody showed up, from politicians to movie stars. When the actress disappeared, the parties stopped.”

“Finish telling us about old Mrs. Rimbauer,” Cathy urges, following Joyce’s lead.

“She disappeared on January fifteenth in 1950 at seventy years old. A maid saw her and wished her good evening and she swept by as though she didn’t even hear her. And that was the last anyone ever saw of her.” _No it wasn’t_ , Kimberly thinks, looking over at her cousin. She could remember the smell of sawdust that clung to him for days after their first visit to the house as children, the nightmares of a beautiful woman holding a hammer. “Come on. There’s lots more to see and the day is young.”

“Watch your step,” Vic advises seconds before he’s forced to keep Kimberly from tripping over a threshold. “I suppose I should’ve warned you sooner.” They share a smile as she rights herself, following the others out into a new hallway.

“The room we’re about to enter is the gymnasium. Although the exercise equipment is out of date….” Joyce trails off as they enter the new room, the overhead chandelier revealing a glass floor, domed ceiling, and bookcase after bookcase built into the walls. _More changes, though not for the better_.

“This room demands a particular form of exercise.”

“How on earth…?”

“It’s the mirror library,” Steve fills in as they shuffle inside. Like the prospective hallway, the mirror library was disorienting at first. The glass floor reflected the ceiling above, all the wood supports that curved to keep small glass panels in place. There was a fireplace and chairs on the left, the mantle decorated by two candelabrums on either side of a small clock. “This room isn’t in the plans, but I remember seeing it as a boy. I was afraid to go in because I thought I’d fall right through.”

“How can they not be in the plans,” Emery asks.

“Do you really have to ask that question when a room screamed at all of us not five minutes ago? They’re not in the plans because Ellen didn’t want them to be and she got away with it because she was dead when it happened. My grandfather made note of it in one of his journals and my aunt Ellie could attest to it when she was still alive.”

“Look,” Cathy interjects before an argument could erupt,” there’s a camera.” She hurries over to it, shifting it around until she sees something that makes her gasp. She hands it off to Nick when she comes back to the group.

“Well, that’s certainly not good,” he says, holding it up for the others to see. “According to the writing here, this belonged to our dearly missing Kevin Bollinger.”

“Mister Bollinger,” Pam calls out. “Mister Bollinger, are you here?” Just like before when someone called his name, the house answered. Instead of wind strong enough to knock you off your feet, the lights in the room extinguished all at once, leaving everyone to fumble with their flashlights until they had them on.

“Nobody panic,” Joyce commands gently,” we all knew this could happen. Just keep your flashlights on and everything will be fine.”

“Maybe we should go back downstairs,” Steve suggests.

“That’s nonsense. Wait, what’s that?” Five yellow beams landed on a pale mist seeping out of the floor, the flashlights surprisingly steady given who all were holding them. The mist grew as it floated upwards, swirling around the translucent form of a little girl that floated a few inches off the ground.

“ _Annie_ ,” the spirit calls, good hand held out. The teen started forward without hesitation despite her sister trying to pull her back, her free hand held out to match the girl’s. Bear followed after her, growling low in his throat as he creeped forward.

“Annie, don’t touch it,” Nick orders sternly. Annie only had ears for April, walking forward as though in a trance.

“ _Annie, come here_.”  It was like watching some kind of tragedy, Kimberly utterly spellbound and unable to look away even as dread pooled in her stomach. The mother in her wanted to grab Annie and yank her away from the obvious danger, but something kept her from acting on the instinct. _“Come with me.”_ It was sudden and quick flashes of light that sent April screaming back into this house’s maze, the overhead lights flickering back on.

“How did you know to do that?” Kimberly turns to glance at Cathy, finding that the older woman had snatched the camera back at some point.

“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “I just did. Someone take this, I-I don’t want it.” She tries to hand it off to Nick, but Pam holds out her hands eagerly.

“Here, I’ll take it,” she says. Her expression changes to confused the second the camera’s in her hands, a crease appearing between her brows as she began to whisper. “Try to get some pictures, good pictures, of them being psychic.”

“What’s that supposed to mean,” Emery questions.

“Maybe someone talking to Bollinger?”

“Is he alive,” Steve asks. “Can you tell?”

“He was when he dropped this camera, but I can’t be sure what happened to him after that.”

“I’m gonna bring up my earlier suggestion of heading back downstairs. Maybe this time someone will actually listen and we can take some time to wonder why all the rooms up here are so angry. Even better, we can pretend they’re not angry and none of this happened. Who’s with me?”

“Easy, you drama king,” Joyce teases. “Let’s go take a lunch break and pick back up later.”


	8. Tales of the Missing

The hall was different when they came back out; flower vases where there shouldn’t have been, faded wallpaper instead of dark wood, tables where there had been empty space. The only thing that wasn’t different was the line of their rope that disappeared around a corner. _Curiouser and curiouser_ , Kimberly thinks as she gazes around. _Will the white rabbit show up soon and reprimand us for being so late or will it be Red Queen demanding our heads?_ At this point, it was anyone’s guess.

“Wait,” Vic calls rushing to the front,” the hallway’s changed.”

“Nonsense,” Joyce starts, but she’s cut off by Kimberly.

“He’s right,” she says. “The house is pulling a Hogwarts on us.” Steve glances at her over his shoulder, arching a brow. “Oh please, like Nicky hasn’t forced you to read that book to him at least once.” _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_ had quickly become Nicky’s favorite book and Kimberly could probably recite it from memory given how many times she’s read it to her son. “Does anyone else hear that banging or am I going nuts?”

“I hear it,” Cathy assures,” I just don’t know what it is.” ‘ _Building_ ,’ a voice whispered somewhere nearby. ‘ _God help us, she’s building again_.’ Kimberly’s gaze snaps to her cousin, recognizing the voice as his even though his lips weren’t moving. The voice had been just as clear as the hammering a few halls down and she begins to wonder if latent psychic abilities weren’t being amplified by the house.

“Steve, what’s going on,” Joyce asks. She catches him by his sleeve when he starts wandering ahead, though his attention seemed split between the room with sawdust and where he is right now.

“The building’s started again,” he informs them as Kimberly comes closer. “You wanted to wake the place up, I’d say you got your wish.” Nick comes to stand on Kimberly’s right, sharing a look with her when she picks up on another fragment of Steve’s thoughts.

“But who’s building,” he asks,” and what?”

“I don’t know.” ‘ _We must build, Stevie. That’s what she’d said all those years ago.’_ Kim winces at the sudden flashes of color that sped through her mind, sunlight through stained glass that put a colorful picture on the floor. _A rose, ruby red and rippling where the sawdust fled under the soles of his shoes_. 

“You’re lying.” Steve shakes his head on instinct despite the fear blooming in his eyes, a deep fear that could turn to panic at any time. _Like a lit match near a puddle of gasoline_. “Can you actually not remember or does it scare you to?”

“It’s gone,” Sister interrupts, voice soft. “Whatever it was, it’s stopped.” Everyone’s attention had been fixed on Steve, so her words came as something of a shock, the sudden absence of the hammering feeling wrong somehow.

“Then I suggest we go downstairs before it starts up again.” Kimberly was all for that, following closely behind her cousin as they continue down the hall. It’s only when they turn the corner that everyone comes to a screeching halt, staring on in shock at the dead end that greeted them. It wasn’t possible, not in the logical sense, the rope led right up to and then disappeared into the wall, taunt where Emery was tugging on it.

“I told you so,” Kimberly mutters. “This place might as well have been designed by Helga Hufflepuff.” Nick gives her an amused look before going to stand in front of the wall, placing his hands on either side of the rope. Kimberly could sense him focusing, the full spectrum of his powers starting to be revealed as he pushed on the wall with his mind. _A Jack of all trades, that’s definitely a first for me_.

“Annie, I need your help.” Joyce leads her over to Nick, gentle yet firm in how she urged her. “Put your hand here and push from here.” He situates her the way he needs, both focusing on the dead end. Like before, Kimberly could sense their focus, the feeling a lot stronger with little Annie working in tandem with him. The entire house seemed to shake on its foundations, the rumbling noise like a boulder rolling through the halls.

“Annie, what are you doing,” Sister asks nervously. Annie pays her no mind, putting her other hand on the wall as well as she narrowed in her attention.

“Nick,” Joyce starts, curt.

“Not now, Joyce,” he advises. His voice was still soft, careful not to startle Annie. It was no surprise to any of the psychics when the wall suddenly shot backwards, the lights going out and then flickering back on as they had in the library. A new hall stretched before them, the end of it hidden in darkness like the mouth of a beast waiting to swallow them whole. Annie giggles, like it was some puzzle she’d solved before everyone else.

“That wasn’t funny,” Sister tells her, though it wasn’t an admonition.

“I think we’ve all had enough excitement for one day,” Joyce says, almost breathless. She liked watching Annie work like that, seeing all the potential wrapped up and held inside one teenager’s mind. “I know another way down from here and there might even be something worth seeing along the way.”

“Are you sure you know the way,” Nick asks, teasing.

“ _Yes_.” They follow her without question, more like children playing follow the leader rather than adults scared out of their minds. Talking is kept to a minimum as they went, Kimberly sandwiched between her husband and cousin as though they had unconsciously agreed to act as personal bodyguards. Much like the men, Bear was sticking closer to Annie than he had been, practically treading on the heels of her shoes.

After ten minutes of walking, they come into yet another room that looked as though it belonged in a fun house. Everything was topsy-turvy, the ceiling made up of green and white tiles with desks and chairs stuck to it while the floor was plain white plaster with the light fixtures sticking straight up.

“Should we look forward to more camouflaged doors, Stevie,” Nick asks as they come into the room.

“Great-gram was never above using a good trick twice,” he confirmed. “This was her little joke on her husband’s business life.”

“Did he get it,” Sister asks. Kimberly reaches out to open one of the drawers of an old filing cabinet, laughing a little when a paper falls out. The paper boasted a childish drawing of a few bluebirds and a monster of some sort, the names at the bottom written in blue crayon.

“I doubt it. Hey, what’s that you got, Kimmy?”

“Remember that second time we were brought here,” she asks, waving the paper. “We had the run of the house again and decided the filing cabinet needed some files in it, so we added our own.” He laughs as he crosses over to peer in the other drawers.

“Do you think our social security cards are still in here?”

“They should be. It’s not like ghosts would have much use for them.” The next drawer she opens as a pink sock and a white one falling out, Steve’s letting them retrieve their cards. “Why’d we put socks in here?”

“Cause we didn’t want our ancestors to get cold feet.”

“I thought you two said you only came here the one time,” Joyce accuses.

“Once with my mom and once with hers, Dee. I forgot about that second trip until just now.” He pockets the cards while Kimberly returns the socks to their rightful drawer, sliding it shut carefully to avoid scuffing the cherry wood. “Door’s right here if you guys are ready.” He gestures at a panel nearby and Vic does the honors, the wall swinging open to reveal another bedroom.

“This house seems to have everything except food,” Emery complains, covering his rumbling belly with an arm.

“I told you to eat breakfast before we left this morning,” Kimberly reminds him smugly. He rolls his eyes as they all walk into another the bedroom and then out another door into a hallway. This hall was padded by a long rug that had tigers and elephants stitched into a green background, clearly meant to represent the African part of the honeymoon.

“Forgive me for not wanting to eat sugary cereal right off the bat.”

“I’ve seen you eat an entire pie at six in the morning before.”

“That was different. I wasn’t almost thirty back then.” They’d both been twenty-two and it was the only thing Kimberly had in her fridge, both too tired to run to the store or a diner after spending most of the night before working on her second novel. Emery and Kim make up the end of the line, Emery in charge of winding up the rope as they go. “Now I can barely even look at pie without gaining thirty pounds.”

“Oh, don’t say stuff like that. You look great.”

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, dear, but I think you need glasses.”

“And you just need to buy clothes that are actually your size. The baggy ones you and your mother always pick up are why you think you’re bigger than you are.”

“They hide my stomach.”

“I love your stomach.” Yes, Emery wasn’t exactly in Olympic shape, but he wasn’t bigger than Texas either and she wished he saw himself the way she did. He was perfect and soft and she loved him.

“And I love your as—”

“Whoa,” Steve cuts in, glaring at them from the front of the line. “Save that for the bedroom because I don’t feel like sticking an icepick in my ear.”

“Mind your own business, Rimbauer.”

“She is my business in case you forgot, Waterman.”

“Just think, Dee,” Kimberly says, ignoring the bickering men,” this is what you have to look forward to. It’s even worse on holidays.” Joyce smiles, but it’s strained this time around. She wouldn’t be sticking around long after they got back to civilization, ditching Steve once Rose Red was a pile of stones and maybe even before that. Steve knew it too, his gaze lingering more on Nick than on Joyce these days.

“It is not worse on holidays!”

“Yeah, what are you talking about,” Emery demands, turning his gaze to her. “We behave just fine at family functions and we’ve got the picture on our wall to prove it.”

“That’s right. We’re all wearing those ugly as sin sweaters and smiling as though we’re not the most dysfunctional family on the planet.” Emery’s cheeks darken and he glares at Steve, the latter remembering too late that it had been Patricia that bought those sweaters. _They really were ugly as all hell, though_. “Someone get Emery a sandwich before he Hulks out on me.”

“Are they supposed to pull the food out of thin air?” Steve dodges into a room with Emery right behind him, Sister laughing as Steve dances just out of Emery’s reach. It turns out to be the billiard room, an entire wall of it dedicated to old black and white photographs of celebrities that had visited Rose Red at some point. Set on one of the tables was an ice chest, the contents being sandwich stuff and cold drinks. 

“Em,” Kimberly calls to get his attention. “I don’t have to pluck it out of thin air, but are you still hungry?” He shoves Steve away and stomps over to the ice chest, beginning to assemble himself a crabmeat sandwich on one of the paper plates. Kimberly is the next to make a sandwich, choosing tuna salad and some grapes before finding a seat in one of the antique chairs. The others do the same, all apart from Emery dragging chairs up around the main coffee table so they were together.

“All better,” Joyce asks, munching on some grapes. She wasn’t really eating much of anything, just pecking at the fruit from time to time like Nicky sometimes did at dinner.

“Could’ve been worse I guess,” he answers grumpily. “There’s too much mayo in the crabmeat.” Kimberly rolls her eyes, well aware of the fact he was a picky eater. Nothing seemed good enough when they first started having meals at her place, but he’d quickly learned that insulting her lasagna meant getting whacked with a wooden spoon.

“What do you want, big boy,” Nick teases. “Bare-breasted nymphs to kneel at your feet and offer you delicacies from silver platters?”

“I already requested that, but Kimmy said it was too cold in our apartment for her to run around without a shirt on.” Steve spit out some of his water as he slipped into a coughing fit, sending Em a disgusted and betrayed look. Kimberly smiles all the same, tugging a little on the pink tee she wore. Her wardrobe was nothing to brag about, mainly bought from Walmart or thrift stores, but she was comfortable in her own skin and it certainly helped that her husband still thought she was beautiful.

“Emery, I’d like to keep Steve around for a little while longer,” Joyce says with a smile. “Keep making comments like those and he’ll either keel over or be sent to prison for strangling you. As for your issues with the food, I should have something you approve of ready by dinner time.”

“Before Emery and Steve decide to wrestle again, how about you tell us about the actress,” Cathy proposes, turning in her seat on the couch to look up at Joyce. “I’ve always been a sucker for celebrities.”

“Well, that’s her on Ellen’s wall of fame.” Joyce points at one of the pictures, this one showing a beautiful woman with dark hair that framed an oval-shaped face. “Deanna Petrie was a fairly big star in the forties. She mainly did musical comedies, but she could dance and sing a little. Most importantly for actresses in Hollywood, she was sexy as hell. She was one of Ellen Rimbauer’s favorite guests at her January fifteenth parties. In 1946 she showed up in what Hedda Hopper called ‘the cocktail dress’. It was what she was wearing when she disappeared. She spent most of the night wowing the guests in this very room. The only thing she left behind was a single earring that a maid found the next day, but she wasn’t still attached to it. Deanna’s disappearance made Rose Red’s reputation.”

“Yes, no one cared when it was just a couple of maids or the occasional lady,” Kimberly adds quietly. “No one would really care about them, but a celebrity was someone the public loved.”

“Unfortunately, that’s right.” Joyce heaves a sigh, looking genuinely sad for a moment before bouncing back and training her gaze on Annie. The teenager was seated on the couch between Cathy and Sister, playing with her doll and paying the world no attention. _Still far away in her own world, better off there instead of in the muck with the rest of us_. “Now, Annie, there’s something I’d like to show you if you’re finished eating.” Joyce kneels in front of her, trying to get Annie to make eye contact with no success. “It’s nice, I think you’ll like it.”

“It’s okay,” Sister tells her, patting her shoulder. “Go ahead and I’ll be right behind you.” Bear echoes the sentiment with a soft bark, nudging her knee with his nose. Annie spares a kind look at the Husky before resting her hand in Joyce’s, letting herself be guided over to a short set of stairs that led up to a small platform. It looked like a miniature balcony, only overlooking the room instead of some beautiful garden.

“Go on up and see what you find.”

“It’s not dangerous, is it?” The others were slowly gathering behind the pair, Bear right on Annie’s heels like before.

“No, not a bit. Go on, Annie.” She goes up by herself onto the platform, nervous fingers playing with crocheted hair.

“Annie,” Nick murmurs. He mimes pressing his hands against a wall when she glances his way, then gives her a thumbs-up. She seemed to understand, the vague emotions that Kimberly could grasp onto letting her know Annie wasn’t dumb like some people would call her. She understood things in her own way, you just had to know how to get the information up to her.

Annie comes to stop in front of the row of wooden panels, reaching out her free hand to press against the squares. The third one gives way under her gentle prodding, sliding down into the wall and allowing enough space for her to put her head in. Kimberly couldn’t see anything fascinating from where she stood, but it couldn’t be anything bad if Bear was so relaxed.

“What in the world is it,” Cathy asks.

“Whatever it is, she likes it,” Sister answers simply.


	9. Peace and Quiet

After lunch was over, everyone had gone back to the second floor to look for bedrooms for the night. Joyce had a basic plan in mind for sleeping quarters and Kimberly would’ve happily gone along with it had a voice not called out to her. Okay, she’ll admit right here and right now that it wasn’t really a voice rather than the start of another memory. They’d been bombarding her left and right since she came onto the property and it didn’t look like they would stop any time soon.

 _‘This house is amazing, Elle_ ,’ a woman was saying, appearing a moment later dragging another woman with her down the hall. Kimberly watched them go, slipping her hand out of Emery’s so she could follow. She was led to one of the main bedrooms at the end of the hall, the same one she’d seen in her dream the other night. Same pinecones carved into the bedposts, same view of rolling hills out the window—dead vines, too, now that so much time has passed. _‘I’ve never seen a house so large before!’_

 _‘Yes, John really put his heart into making Rose Red a reality_ ,’ another brunette said. She shared the same delicate bone structure as Beatrice and the same pale eyes that stood out against the faint tan she sported from a year abroad. _‘I designed this room especially for you, Bess. While I’m entirely sorry for the circumstances of your visit, I am glad to have another confidante here.’_

 _‘I’m just glad to see you again. Your letters were welcome, but it wasn’t the same as seeing you in person every day.’_ The women shared a smile, fingers entwining tight enough that they turned white. Kimberly hovers in the doorway, feeling like an intruder even though she knew this happened ninety-two years ago.

“—she does this, too,” Emery was saying when Kimberly was tugged back to reality by a hand on her shoulder. She blinks a couple of times before looking back to the others, filing the memory away into a neat little lockbox. “Are you okay, babe?”

“Uh, yeah,” she nods, rubbing at the back of her neck. “It was just…. It was nothing.”

“Are you sure,” Joyce asks, brows furrowed in worry. “You were mumbling something under your breath. It sounded like a name or….” She trails off and the worry dims as fascination takes over. She’d never actually witnessed Kimberly using her little superpower and certainly not to this extent where everything played out right in front of her. Normally the memories came while she slept, but these were jumping out and demanding to be seen.

“Emery and I will take this room.”

“No, but I’ve got everyone down this hall.” She gestures to the right, the row of doors all shut firmly. Kimberly didn’t have to go look to know the bedrooms were nice, but not anywhere near as nice as the master bedrooms or the one designed for Beatrice. She wasn’t the type to demand fancy things, but this was one thing she wouldn’t bend on.

“This was Beatrice’s room and I’m staying in it.” To drive the point home, Kimberly leaves the group behind as she enters the room with her bags in hand. Emery and Bear follow her in, the door shutting quietly behind them after a light kick on Emery’s part. “I don’t mean to sound like a brat.”

“You didn’t,” he says, setting his pack down against the wall. Kimberly tosses her bags onto one of the high-backed chairs set in front of a fireplace on the left wall, running her fingers through her hair. “Everyone out there should understand since they’re going through something similar in this place.”

“Not like this.” She drops onto the bed, only vaguely surprised when a cloud of dust doesn’t suffocate her. In fact, there wasn’t a speck of dust or even the smell of moth balls in the entire room, which led to her wondering if Francois had prepared it or Bess herself. “Well, maybe Stevie is, but no one else.”

“Yeah, what was that about? Steve can’t even guess which card a magician is holding half the time.”

“It’s this stupid house. It amplifies everything to the nth degree including very faint traces of psychic abilities apparently.” It wouldn’t take much on the house’s part to get her stuck in another memory, forced to watch the scene unfold as a spectator that could no more change what happened than one in ancient Rome could decide to take the lions out of the Colosseum. “How are you handling all this?”

“Pretty well, I think. I figured out who one of those ghosts were that I saw at Mom’s house the other night. Deanna freaking Petrie.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, uh-huh. Let me tell you, she looked a whole lot better in that picture Ellen has up on her wall of fame.” Kimberly can’t help but laugh at the serious expression on Emery’s face, covering her smile with a hand. “You think that’s funny, do you? I’d like to see you handle a chick that’s been dead longer than you’ve been alive.” He was smiling, though, and his tone was light as he collapsed beside her on the large bed.

“If it makes you feel any better, I just saw my great-gran gushing about this room to my great-aunt. Sure, they looked beautiful, but it gave me a killer migraine.” She massages a temple for emphasis, though her smile widens when Emery wraps an arm about her middle.

“You know what the best cure for a headache is?” She hums in response, resting her cheek against his chest as her eyes slide closed. “A nap without any little wiggle worms to interrupt it.” Now _that_ was an idea she could get behind.

“I haven’t had one of those in four years. I wonder why that is.”

“I don’t know, but it couldn’t possibly coincide with us having a child that refuses to sleep in normal positions.” Nicholas seemed to think sleeping should only be done sideways, which led to numerous mornings where Kimberly and Emery woke up with their son lying on top of them and hogging all the covers. How someone so small and can take up so much room in a bed was beyond her.

“I gotta take these pants off first.” She slides back onto her feet, quickly shimmying out of the tight jeans she’d pulled on that morning. She would have to move up a size soon enough and she’d be hard-pressed to find some jeans with the same flower stitching that these had along one thigh and a calf.

“Those pants make your ass look amazing.”

“No, the squats I do make my ass look amazing. These jeans just show my hard work off better.” He snorts and tugs her back onto the bed, pressing a chaste kiss against her lips. He was always so gentle, it was one of the things Kimberly loved about him, and he tasted like coffee even when he hadn’t drunk any that day. “Love you, Em.”

“Love you, too, Kimmy.” He tightens his hold on her as their eyes slide closed once more, and then the room was falling away around them as sleep took hold.


	10. Swing Dancing and Old Stories

So it turns out that not sleeping soundly for four years could turn your quick little nap into one that lasts nearly five hours. While Emery decided to just stay in his wrinkled clothes, Kimberly took full advantage of having a bath without a certain child demanding her attention every five seconds. She soaked for a good thirty minutes before actually washing up, coming back into the bedroom in only a towel.

“Wow, maybe we need to take these vacations more often,” Emery quips, finally looking up from the book he’d brought along.

“What do you mean? I walk around in a towel at the apartment all the time.” Most of them did, it was a side effect of usually forgetting pajamas in the mad rush to get Nicky clean. It’s not like it was sexy, her cheeks were red from the heat of her bath water and she knew for a fact that a small streak of hair remained on her left leg even though she’d just shaved. _I’ll have to wax when we get home again, that always works better_.

“Yeah, but I never get the chance to actually admire that at home.” He waggles his brows suggestively and she laughs, feeling her cheeks heat up further in a dark blush. “That’s all I have to do right now, ogle my wife and wonder how great I must’ve been in a past life to get someone so beautiful to marry me.”

“Funny, I usually think the same thing about you.” He scoffs and shakes his head, tugging on the lobe of his ear in a nervous habit. “You do realize how great you look, right? I’ve never seen someone that could actually pull off khaki pants, but then this guy shows up at my book signing doing exactly that.”

“Yeah, and I was standing right behind him.”

“Nah, the guy in front of you was one of those rude Christians that told me I had a first class ticket to hell.” She makes a face at that particular memory, the man probably in his late seventies and brandishing his Bible like a weapon. “His parents obviously didn’t raise him right because, as a Christian myself, I know there’s a part in the Bible that says to treat people right.”

“You’re thinking of the golden rule.”

“No, Jesus said it first.” She lets the towel drop to the thick carpeting before pulling on fresh underwear and a simple red dress that was suited to casual gatherings. She slips her feet into the black flats and yanks a brush through her short hair before deciding to forgo any makeup for the night. She was still tired and didn’t figure anyone actually cared about the amount of effort she put into her appearance anyway.

“You ready to head downstairs?”

“I guess,” she sighs, the first one to the door. Emery tosses his book— _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_ —onto the bed and follows after her. The book had come out last year, not exactly one of the best in the series but not awful either, and Emery was making sure it was appropriate for Nicky. Thus far, there had been no complaints other than boredom.

The trip downstairs holds no surprises or jump scares, which is something Kimberly will forever be grateful for. Most of the others are already gathered in the main parlor, dressed about as nicely as Kimberly as they roamed around—Cathy and Vic were sitting next to each other comparing Bibles, Joyce was looking over some equipment, and Nick was investigating some of the decorations.

“Well, you’re a lively bunch.”

“I think we’ve had just about as much liveliness in one day as a person can take,” Nick remarks, sending her a smile over his shoulder. With a smile of her own, Kimberly moves to sit on one of the couches with her feet curled up beneath her, shoes forgotten on the ground. Emery drifts over to the organ, beginning to play a moment later just as he’d done for his church when he was younger.

“Do you like your room?” Pam, seated in a chair just a foot and a half away, shrugs with a nervous smile.

“It’s the nicest one I’ve ever been in,” she replies with a laugh. “I keep getting all these fantastic visions when I touch the blankets or even the lamps. Did you know one of the maids kept a small stash of jewelry hidden in secret compartment in there?”

“That’s amazing, Pam.”

“Did you see anything in your room?” Kimberly hesitates a moment, remembering the way Beatrice’s face had lit up upon seeing her room for the very first time and the way she’d gushed at her older sister. “Kim?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry. When we first approached the rooms, I saw my great-gran and Ellen talking about how much they missed each other during Ellen’s honeymoon. It was just a memory like some of the others I’ve seen walking around here, but it was a strong one. Usually I only see them when I’m asleep.” _The ones of Bess and Frederick at any rate_.

“Good emotions?”

“Great ones, yeah. Beatrice, my great-gran, and her husband’s manor house burnt down not long after Ellen and John returned from their whirlwind honeymoon. They lived here for four years and had a little boy by the time they returned to Summer’s End.” Pam smiles, bright and infectious, at the story. “Bess and Frederick really loved each other and they loved their baby. They were one of those rare couples that could stand as an example of soulmates.”

“That’s so great. Did they get their happily ever after?”

“Not so much.” Kimberly frowns, recalling the pain in her chest that had nearly made her collapse when she was a child. She’d been nine and was in the middle of gym class when the memory struck her, driving her backwards against a wall as she watched the devastating results of living in Rose Red for too long. “Bess disappeared in the same year as John’s death and Frederick committed suicide on the property twenty years later after finding her necklace in the woods.” Her hand comes up to grasp the necklace, remembering the day her mother had passed it down to her.

“Oh, that’s awful. I guess it’s just more proof that the house is evil.” The blonde looks around like she expected the house to come to life and gobble them up. Kimberly didn’t blame her, she’d been expecting the same thing ever since they drove onto the property. “Do you think something like that will happen to us?”

“Pretty much.” There was no use in lying about it, Pam would be feeling the same way soon enough if she wasn’t already. Besides, you didn’t have to be psychic to know the house was more monster than a structure of wood and stone. It devoured its owners and it wouldn’t stop until it was satisfied or everyone was dead.

“Emery,” Nick calls, looking away from the suit or armor he was studying,” are you thinking of dressing for dinner?” The music stops and Emery stands to face Nick, light glinting off the metal frame of his glasses.

“You tell me,” he says sarcastically. “Read my mind.” Nick gives a soft huff of laughter in response and moves on to another piece of furniture. The atmosphere was a comfortable one, reminding Kimberly of winter nights where her family would gather in their cramped living room to play board games as snow fell outside.

“Annie,” Sister calls,” Glenn Miller.” Annie sprints over to the old phonograph from across the room, more interested now in the shining horn than the way Steve stoked the flames in the massive fireplace.

“That doesn’t work,” Joyce says as Annie passes by. “I tried it while I was setting up. Sorry, Annie.” The sisters pay her no mind and there was a content smile curling Annie’s lips upwards, making her eyes shine in excitement. It was a nice look on her and Kim finds herself smiling as well at the teen’s happiness.

The doorbell rings a second later, everyone standing as Joyce heads to the door that leads into the entrance hall. “Joyce,” Vic starts, but she waves him off.

“It’s alright.” All but Annie follow after her towards the front doors, a little trill of fear rushing through Kimberly when one of the doors refuses to open. It doesn’t last long, however, as Steve tugs on the right door and it swings open easily to reveal a middle-aged man. He had shaggy brown hair that was starting to go gray and a pair of glasses similar to Emery’s, dressed in a red windbreaker and holding two pizza boxes with soda cans balanced on top.

“Got three loaded for Reardon,” he recites boredly. “Large, with two six-packs of soda.” She has a smug expression when she passes the food and drinks off to Emery.

“And to think you doubted me this afternoon.”

“I suppose you _do_ pay attention on game nights,” he says with a grin. Game nights were every Saturday, they’d break out Monopoly or Scrabble and make bets using Teddy Grahams. It was a tradition that went all the way back to the mid-seventies when Steve and Kimberly were actually old enough to understand the rules of the games.

_In the Mood_ filters through the golden horn of the phonograph as Emery passes off the sodas to Kimberly, Annie coming to stand in the entry hall with a smug smile of her own. “I haven’t heard this song in forever,” Kimberly laughs, swaying along to the fast beat of it.

“Not since our wedding when you made me dance with you to it.” She nods, setting the sodas on a side table so she could dance a little easier. People were partnering off already, the sound of shoe heels clicking against wood and marble, skirts of dresses flaring out.

“Do this often,” the pizza man asks.

“Every chance we get,” Joyce lies smoothly. “How much?”

“Uh, thirty dollars and twenty-five cents.” Joyce digs the amount out of her wallet and passes it over, the pizza guy barely paying attention as he glances past them at the grand house. “This is some place. Is it haunted?”

“Yeah,” Emery remarks,” by the ghosts of delivery men who asked too many stupid questions and never escaped.” Kimberly kicks the door shut and sets the pizza boxes in Joyce’s arms before dragging Emery further into the hall. “What? No, Kim, I don’t dance and you know that.”

“Everyone dances, Em,” she says,” even you.” She leads the steps and Emery follows as best as he can, both of them moving along to the rhythm almost instinctively. Kimberly feels as though time has suddenly gone backwards and she was back in the small venue they’d rented in ’97, dancing with her husband in front of their friends and family. Steve was standing just at the edge of the crowd, joining in a few minutes later with Kimberly’s mother. Even at fifty-six years old, Alana Ravenwood could keep up with the best of them.

**~::*::~**

Kimberly was finding it hard to stay awake as _Moonlight Serenade_ played, a soothing melody that was fit for late nights and lullabies. Every now and then she’d nibble on her pizza, only half paying attention to the conversations happening throughout the room. She was more focused on the movie playing behind her eyelids, three happy kids running through the halls as Frederick chased after them, laughs ringing out and filling Rose Red with happiness. It’s not until Nick announces that its story time that Kimberly allows herself to be grounded again.

“We’ve heard about the actress,” Nick states, seated in one of the chairs across from Kimberly. “Why don’t you enthrall us with the tale about Mister Posey.” Douglas Posey, the man Steve’s father had been named after and the one they didn’t know much about other than the suicide.

“Remember that séance I told you about,” Joyce checks.

“Starring the famous gypsy psychic, Cora Frye?”

“The very same. That was 1914 and the war in Europe was heating up the American economy. Omicron Oil was in clover, the money was rolling in, and John Rimbauer was tired of sharing it. In October that same year he gave Douglas Posey the bum’s rush.”

“According to family legend, Uncle Posey had a taste for cowboys,” Steve adds.

“He liked chaps in chaps,” Nick asks in amusement. “Was he into roping or branding?” Kimberly brings a hand up to her mouth, hiding her smile but not quite muffling the laugh.

“Probably a little bit of both.”

“John Rimbauer bought him out at distress sale prices,” Joyce continues seamlessly. “He was told never to come back to Rose Red, but he did once in 1915. John was in Europe and Ellen was home with the kids, including little Alfred Airey.” She looks to Kimberly and starts up again at a confirming nod. “He snuck inside through the West Wing that was being constructed and was already half up the ladder when the kids came running in.”

“Granddad never forgot Posey tossing him that Tom Mix hat. He wanted to keep it and he threw a tantrum when his mother tried to take it away. He used to tell us kids that he believed the hat was tucked away in the attic along with the vest Posey tossed to Alfred. And the rose, he never forgot April catching the rose.”

“Why did he wait a year to do it,” Sister asks, pizza forgotten. “And why would he do it here?”

“If you wanted answers, then you came to the wrong place.”

“It’s because Posey knew John would be returning home that afternoon,” Kimberly fills in. She pushes an olive to the side of her plate as she talks, more interested in getting them off than the flickering image of the dead man swinging back and forth in front of the mantel. “He wanted to make sure his death would be another stain in the Rimbauer house.”

“Following the suicide,” Joyce picks back up,” John and Ellen kept Adam out of Rose Red as much as possible. As I said earlier, he was away at boarding school when his sister disappeared.”

“He knew damn well that something was very wrong here,” Pam says emphatically.

“The male descendants of the Rimbauer line have mostly stayed clear of the family manse,” Steve continues. “I wasn’t here more than half a dozen times as a kid. I got off on my own just once when I was eight. My mother brought Kimmy and I here while Dad and Kimmy’s parents were all at work. I forgot until today, I think I blocked it out. Nick’s the one that reminded me.”

“That’s right,” Kimberly recalls with a nod. “Aunt Irene didn’t have enough to pay for a babysitter, so she just piled us all in the car and took off. She kept mumbling about buried treasure.”

“She was drunk again, I remember that clearly enough. She was drunk a lot back then.” _Still is, that’s why we all agreed to put her in a nursing home_. The last straw had been in ’93 when a cop brought her home after he found her sleeping off a three day bender on a park bench. “I know we were all broke. After we lost the oil company, broke-itis had been a family disease.”

“And while your mother was treasure hunting, you got lost,” Nick states matter-of-factly. “You were upstairs before you realized how lost you were. One floor above the mirror library. Or was it three floors? Or ten? Because when this place gets going, when it feels lively and has energy to draw on, Rose Red can make itself as big as it wants. Isn’t that right? Finally you got to the top and that’s where—”

But they never got to find out what Nick was about to say as the doors to the parlor slam shut with a _bang_. The entire house seemed to come to life, as though enraged by what Nick was saying as the entire room began to rumble and sparks flew from the lightbulbs all over the room. Kimberly drops to the floor and covers her head as best she can, letting out a sharp hiss when some of the sparks hit her bare legs.

“What is it,” Joyce yells over the noise. “Does anyone know?”

“It’s a cluster manifestation with rising elements, like an earthquake!”

“It’s the house,” Cathy accuses,” it’s coming alive!” Someone hauls her to her feet and she looks up to find her cousin, his expression stoic as he nods towards the doors. Someone was there, Kimberly could just make out a vague form that seemed to shift in time with the shadows. _Sukeena_ , she realizes, grabbing Steve’s shirt tightly in her fist. _Sukeena working to make the trespassers terrified_. And the plan was working as most of the others began to panic, but Kimberly felt a calm descend on her as she realized the same thing as Steve. _The house wants us, needs to devour the last of its line before it has enough energy to stabilize and build forever_.

“How many are there,” Joyce demands, though Kimberly barely heard her. _Well guess what, bitch_ , she thinks, projecting the words towards the dark-skinned phantom across the room _, you ain’t getting us no matter what horror shows you put on display!_ _Soon enough, this place will just be a pile of bricks and you’ll still be a moldering corpse!_

There’s a bright flash of light as the flames form a mutilated face, an invisible force sending Emery backwards against the hard floor. The flames died down after that and the house seemed to calm, a soft breath leaving Kimberly as a toy baby carriage rolled from the now empty doorway and came to a stop in front of the mantle. Things were piled inside it, children’s toys that drew Annie forward like a moth to a flame.

“Annie, don’t touch it,” Sister pleads. Annie just continues forward, gently picking up a Raggedy Ann doll and turning to face the others. It seemed to match her other doll, a perfect set made by the house to bribe a child into joining them.

_A Summer Place_ started up on the phonograph, a background noise as all eyes turned to the glowing smoke that floated up out of the floor. Much like in the library, the smoke reveals itself to be April as she floats several inches above the ground. Her voice was thin, rising and lowering on some invisible wind as she calls for Annie to join her.

Terror had Kimberly’s feet nailed to the floor, hands shaking at her sides as she watched Annie start forward with an outstretched hand and hope in her eyes. It’s Steve that acts this time, throwing a cup right through April’s head, the glass shattering against the doors seconds before they swing outward again, April vanishing with a pained shriek.

“I’d advise none of you to go wandering tonight,” Joyce says, looking like a satisfied cat that’s just had its back scratched. “You’d agree, wouldn’t you, Steve?” Everything seemed to rush in and fill him in that moment, the stoicism replaced by a deep exhaustion that had his shoulders hunching forward.

“As a matter of fact, I would.”


	11. Nighttime Wandering

After a drawing of straws, Alfred was chosen to be Kimberly’s guard for the night as her defenses fell to the wayside and sleep claimed her. He didn’t really mind the chore even if it was dreadfully boring to the twenty-four year old. It was interesting to see some of his sister’s features in this woman, though she got the dark eyes from her father; the same thick mane of hair, same grin that was bursting with sass, same sharp sense of humor. Kimberly was Ellie all over and Alfred was grateful for it.

Still, as much as he loved the kid, it was dull as sin to just sit around a bedroom as the humans slept. All he could do was wander around and wait for morning to come, his only real job to keep the more malicious spirits out so his great-niece had a chance to sleep uninterrupted. And her husband, he supposed, though the latter didn’t exactly have a likable demeanor.

He scoffs and drops into an armchair, blue eyes gazing around for anything interesting. It hadn’t been so bad a few hours ago, he’d had a chance to listen in the couple’s conversation about their little troublemaker and he was even able to shove Sukeena through a wall back into the recesses of the house. Now it was nearly two in the morning, the spirits were settling down alongside the guests and Alfred felt like jumping out the window just to see what would happen.

He was just picking up a book when he heard bed covers shifting and then the sound of bare feet on carpet. “What,” he starts, though soon cuts himself off when he spots Kimberly. She was pacing about the room, seemingly lost in some sort of daze as she tried to find something. “Oh, uh, you shouldn’t—”

“Find it,” she breathes out, eyes half-closed as she heads to the door.

“You can’t leave your room you’re practically naked!” And hadn’t _that_ been mortifying for Alfred to see! His sweet baby niece dressed only in a short top and panties. “Kimberly, come back! Oh,” he groans as she walks out into the hall,” Mother’s going to be furious when she finds out I let her go for a walk.” 

“Got to… Find it.”

“Find what?” But she didn’t seem to hear anything, shuffling down the hall towards the staircase that curved down to the first floor. He grumbles under his breath, running after her and attempting to grab her only to have his hand pass right through her arm. _This being dead thing is a pain in the ass_. As if dying in the first place wasn’t bad enough, his soul was stuck in this godforsaken house with a ton of people he didn’t even like at the best of times. The only people he could stomach being around were his parents.

Kimberly keeps going, a purposeful stride now that had Alfred on edge. He’d say she was possessed if he didn’t know any better, bare feet slapping against the marble as she heads straight for the front door. “Find it now… Find- Before she has it.” Her voice was soft, like it was being carried on some invisible breeze from far away.

“Kimberly,” a new voice called, followed by hurried footsteps. Alfred turns right as Steve rushes past, the alive man grabbing Kimberly’s arm and jerking her to a stop. “Hey, Kimmy!” He gives her a good shake and she comes back to herself with a deep, rattling breath, brown eyes opened wide as she took everything in. “What the hell were you doing?”

“I don’t…” She trails off and looks around, gaze lingering on Alfred for a moment before it passes on. _She saw me_ , he thinks excitedly, _she really saw me!_ “Why aren’t you in bed?” Steve lets out a small bark of laughter, wrapping his arms around her in a hug.

“I wanted a sandwich. Come on, let’s get you some water.”

“I think I need something a little stronger.” Alfred agreed with that sentiment, wishing he could have a shot or two of the whisky Uncle John had hidden away in the false floorboard of his study. His attention moves to the head of the staircase, taking in the wispy and decaying form of his aunt Ellen. She used to be so beautiful, he remembered, but now she was moldering skin pulled taunt over her bones with white hair pulled back in a severe bun.

“She’s not yours,” he tells her firmly, taking half a step forward. “You stay out of her head.” Her lips pull back in a horrific grin, baring pointed teeth more reminiscent of a mangy dog’s than a woman’s.

“She’ll soon belong to us,” Ellen hisses. “These psychics will keep Rose Red building for centuries to come.” Alfred shakes his head, unflinching when she suddenly appears in front of him with a sound like breaking glass. “She will be ours just like you are, dear nephew.” She reaches up a spindly hand to caress his face, but he catches her wrist before she could touch him.

“You’re going to turn to dust soon and I hope I’m there to bear witness.”


	12. Family Reunion

It was late when Kimberly woke the next morning, shoulder sore from how she’d slept on it the night before. Without opening her eyes, she reaches out a hand for Emery only to come up empty, barely cracking one eye open to confirm that she was alone in the room. “Fucking early risers,” she curses, forcing herself to sit up. It was fairly warm in the house, though the wooden floors were like ice without socks, as Kimberly found out the hard way. “Fucking floors.”

Grumbling, she digs around in her bag until she finds a fresh set of clothes to pull on, deciding on jean shorts and a pale green shirt that bared her shoulders apart from the thin spaghetti straps. She forces her feet into the black flats, making a note to glue the sole back in place once they were back to civilization, before finally leaving the room to explore.

She could hear the sounds of pans on a stove downstairs, but she wasn’t ready to face people yet. Well, not _alive_ ones at any rate. The hallway is deserted when she steps out of the bedroom, no one around to stop her as she turns to the left towards a set of stairs she hadn’t noticed yesterday evening.

 _The building’s started_ , she thinks with a frown, _adding onto the house and onto Ellen’s half-life_. But is it even a half-life if she was stuck in this place? Kimberly smiles and then laughs as another thought strikes her. _Welcome to Seattle, home of the Space Needle and Purgatory_.

“If that doesn’t bring the tourists in, then nothing will,” she mumbles as she starts up the stairs. They creaked underfoot, her shoes leaving imprints in the dust as though she were the first person to climb these stairs in at least thirty years. Probably not that far off the mark either. She was almost halfway up them when a man flickered into existence at the top, his suit faded in places, but his blond hair looking like spun gold. “Frederick?”

“That’s right, little one,” he answers with a smile,” though I suppose you’re no longer the little girl I met all those years ago. Go on back downstairs, there’s nothing up here for you.” She would’ve, but there was a pulling sensation in her chest, like she was being guided by some invisible string. A marionette being manipulated by the monstrosity of a house.

“It’s up there. I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to find, but it’s up there.” He pulls something out of his pocket and starts down the stairs, leaving no impression in the dust nor making the stairs creak. “I have to—”

“I believe you’re looking for this.” He holds up a set of wedding bands, both made of yellow gold with intricate designs carved into the one meant for the man and the woman’s curving up to coil delicately around a single diamond. “Bess wanted them to be passed down to our children, but she never got the chance and I didn’t feel right handing mine off without it’s match.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“Expensive, too.” He holds them out and Kimberly raises her hand on instinct, surprised when the bands remain solid even as Frederick’s passes right through her palm. “You keep one and give the other to my nephew, let that tradition be completed.”

“But they’re yours.”

“And now they’ve been passed on as they should have been ages ago.” He tries to cup her cheek, the air around them growing colder with each passing second. “Go on and enjoy your family, Kimmy, and make sure that grandson of mine knows he is loved.” She opens her mouth, not sure what she was going to say, but it didn’t make a difference as he drifts away like smoke on a breeze. There one second and gone the next with only a faint whiff of cologne left behind.

“I promise, Gramps.” It’s not until she turns and starts back down the stairs that she realizes the tugging sensation has gone away for the first time since she was six.

She wanders through the halls for a time before finding her way into the parlor, smiling at Nick as he passes through to another room. She settles down in one of the plush armchairs that had been scooted over by the fireplace, tucking the rings away in one of her pockets so they would be safe until she could find a better place for them. She’d hand one over to Steve once they were home again, someplace safe where the spirits in this house wouldn’t be able to snatch them away.

Kimberly was tempted to just tuck them away in her bra, but she figured Steve wouldn’t appreciate that very much. She was also tempted to fall asleep right in the chair, but it seemed time wasn’t on her side.

It was chanting and yelling that had Nick and Kimberly meeting out in the hallway, trying to pinpoint where the noise was coming from. “I think it’s here,” Nick says after a moment, leading the way into the billiard room and pausing in the doorway a moment as he takes in the scene with shock. Emery was standing near the row of windows, fingers in his ears and talking gibberish to drown out the sound of Vic banging and screaming outside.

“Oh my God.”

Nick seems to break out of a trance, blinking hard and then storming across the room. He pushes Emery roughly out of his way, snarling down at the other man. "He came to you for help and you turned your back on him!" Kimberly felt frozen in place, gaze shifting between her husband and the old man clutching his chest outside. It wasn’t until Emery sprinted out of the room that she felt the hold on her release, her senses flooding back.

“Em, wait!” She chases after him, knowing it was stupid to go around this house by oneself. “Emery!” He begins to yell again, but it’s like the wind is trying to carry away his words. No, not the wind, _Rose Red_ is. It wants them separated so that they’re more vulnerable and easy to snack on.

Her breathing came out in gasps the longer she ran up the endless stairs, slowly losing sight of her husband the further into the house they go. She doesn’t stop, not even when her lungs feel fit to burst in her chest; she continues to run even though she’s lost count of how many turns she’s made or any idea of how she’ll get back downstairs with Emery if she ever finds him.

Kimberly slides to a stop when she rounds another corner only to find herself somewhere she’s never seen in her dreams or in real life. This was a brand new wing of the house, sawdust still sprinkled across the floors. _No, God, please, don’t let this happen. Not now_. She turns, intending to head back to the stairs, but there’s only a wall made up of solid mahogany.

She’s lost in the halls, Emery’s cries muffled by the sound of hammers pounding against wood. Kimberly sucks in a deep breath, pressing her hands against the new wall and pushing as hard as she could. “Come on,” she hisses,” let me out! Help!”

“John, please…” The mousy voice had Kimberly looking over her shoulder, then turning completely when she spots Beatrice standing not too far away with a familiar man looming over her. “We can’t do this here, someone might see.”

“And so what if they do,” he asks, advancing closer and closer until Beatrice was pressed against one of the walls with no chance to escape. “I am the master of the house and our servants know better than to gossip if they want to keep their jobs.”

“Their jobs or their lives?” John seems taken aback by the brief flare of anger in the woman’s blue eyes. “When you get tired of me, will you just have Daniel do away with me like he did Laura?” She pushes hard against his chest, gaining back a foot of space between them.

“What the hell are you talking about? You know damn well that the only women I’ve been with since returning to Seattle have been you and my wife. And I know you still want me, dear Bess.” She closes her eyes, face losing its color. “I know you and Ellen made this little arrangement after Adam was conceived, that you and your husband desperately needed an heir to prove you weren’t useless as a wife.”

“That’s not—”

“I’m not complaining. In fact, I rather like our affair being known to Ellen so she won’t complain as much. Does Frederick know as well? Does he know how lovely you moan when I touch you? That his perfect little boy is really mine?” He was advancing again, his grin only able to be described as sinister.

“Leave her alone,” Kimberly shouts, stepping away from the corner she’d backed into. It was instinct that made her do it, a flare of protectiveness for a woman she’s seen so often in her dreams. John’s head snaps in her direction, flesh sagging beneath his eyes and turning sallow under the lights, more a corpse than a man. “You don’t touch her!” Snarling, he begins to march over to Kimberly, hands clenching and unclenching into fists at his sides.

“And what will you do if I don’t obey you,” he demands, voice a low growl. “You’re nothing but a child.”

“And you’re not real.”

"I assure you, Mrs. Waterman, I'm real." He grins, tangling the fingers of one hand into Kimberly’s hair and yanking her head back. She pushes against his chest, using all the strength she had in her to try and get him away so she could make a run for it. “I ought to kill you as I was killed, find a pretty window to throw you through.”

“Sorry,” she grunts, bringing her knee up sharply into John’s groin,” defenestration wasn’t on my bucket list.” His eyes cross as he sinks to the floor, letting out a long, low groan of pain. “Touch my grandmother again and I’ll do worse than that, Rimbauer.”

 _And now to find a way out_.


	13. Mommy's Little Scootabout

_‘_ _A house is a place of shelter, it’s the body we put on over our bodies. As our bodies grow old, so do our houses. As our bodies may sicken, so do our houses sicken._ _’_ The words seemed to echo in Kimberly’s mind, intrusive thoughts that were not her own. It was like before, when they first arrived and the whispers started, but much clearer now. Horrifyingly clear. _‘And what of madness? If mad people live within, doesn’t this madness creep into the rooms and walls and corridors? The very boards?’_

“Stop it,” she hisses, covering her ears with her hands in a desperate attempt to make it all stop. “Just stop it already!” 

_‘Don’t we sometimes sense that madness reaching out to us? Isn’t that a large part of what we mean when we say a place is unquiet, festered up with spirits? We say “haunted,” but we mean the house has gone insane.’_

“ENOUGH!” She screams the word, dropping to her knees in the middle of a corridor with her eyes squeezed shut. She didn’t want to hear it, those thoughts projected from the mind of their fearless leader. Joyce was beginning to crack, fall apart at the seams, go out of her fuckin’ mind as the house works its magic on her. They probably all would eventually, just like Ellen.

“Kimberly?” The words began to fade back into woodwork, but Kimberly keeps her hands pressed tightly over her ears. It was too loud, all those damn thoughts and memories that kept trying to pull her seventy different directions. “Kimberly, what’s wrong? What do you hear?”

“Voices,” she rasps, looking up at Sister as the other woman kneels above her. “So many voices.” Sister helps her into a sitting position, both of them leaning against the paneled wall as Kimberly tried to block out the voices of the dead and insane. _If the madness has seeped into the very foundation of a house, could it seep into human visitors as well?_ It was beginning to look more and more likely.

“I-I don’t hear anything.”

“No, you’re not tuned into the frequency.” Kimberly gives a dry laugh, staring ahead of her. _One of my shoes is gone. When did I lose it?_ Probably during the mad dash away from John after she’d helped her great-gram to escape. The corpse had lumbered after her for a good hour until she finally lost him in one of the servant halls. “Apparently I have a closer connection to this house than I thought.”

“What do you mean?” Sister was looking at her in concern, like a mother that had just witnessed her child take a bad fall.

“My great-grandpa wasn’t able to get Beatrice pregnant no matter how much they tried, so her and Ellen struck up a deal—Bess would seduce John in order to get pregnant and to keep him off of Ellen while she was pregnant with Adam. Two birds with one stone and all that. Frederick knew, everyone did, but he didn’t care because he also knew she was only doing it to give him an heir. Their second child was John’s too, but had inherited its grandmother’s beautiful blonde hair that matched Frederick’s.”

“Oh, that’s… That’s a lot for you to take in. Did someone tell you or…?”

“Bess did when I got her away from John upstairs.” Kimberly’s smile softens as she recalls the way her great-gram had smiled in exhilaration over escaping the parasite. “She said John was just a means to an end and that I obviously take after her Freddy.”

Sister looked ready to ask another question when they were cut off by frantic screaming, their first reactions to be jumping up and running towards the sounds. Everyone else seemed to follow the same logic, six of the group meeting up in the entryway. “What’s going on,” Steve demands, voice rising in panic.

“He says Vic is dead,” Cathy answers breathlessly. The memory swoops in and Kimberly can’t force it back, seeing Vic as he stumbled across the grounds trying to get away from some vicious trick the house was pulling, a statue that could move and cause heart attacks. _And a poor psychic that had thought Vic wasn’t real and now feels guilty as sin if he’s still alive_. Because Emery wasn’t gathered with the others and she still couldn’t hear him.

“He is,” Nick says,” just ask Kimberly.” All eyes swing to focus on her and she shrinks away from the sudden attention. “She saw it all as well and she _knows_ what killed him.”

“Rose Red killed him,” she confirms, meeting Steve’s gaze. “He was drawn outside and he died.” And he’s still out there, body and soul trapped on the grounds just like all the others here. _We’ll be trapped soon enough, unable to break free of this house’s tight grasp around our throats_.

“And it will kill all of us if Ellen gets her way.” Kimberly’s gaze is drawn to something over Nick’s shoulder, the sound of heavy footsteps preceding her husbands as he comes bounding down the stairs, pale and sweating. She wastes no time in shouldering past the others and wrapping her arms around her husband’s neck, clinging tightly to him as the familiar warmth of his thoughts washes over her.

“Oh, thank God,” he breathes into the crook of her neck, one arm tight around her waist and his free hand held against the back of her head. He was shaking badly, like someone left out in the cold for hours. “I didn’t mean to run, I swear I didn’t. It’s just that my mother’s here.”

“That’s not possible,” Kim says as she pulls back to look at him. “Your mother only gets out of bed this early if she knows there’s a sale.”

“I heard her!” He winces and takes a deep breath before continuing, voice lower. “I heard her yelling for me be-before Vic, I thought it was just some cruel trick, but it wasn’t. I…. I didn’t help him, I should’ve—” He cuts himself off, grabbing Kimberly’s hand and tugging her after him past the others. “We need to leave.” He turns to face the group, gesturing vaguely as he continues to speak. “There’s a bubble forming and I don’t wanna be around when it decides to pop.”

“What in the world would your mother be doing here,” Cathy asks, trying to soothe the rising tensions. It just didn’t make sense to anyone other than Emery, they didn’t know Patricia’s paranoid tendencies.

“She worries about me! To tell the truth, I can’t say I blame her this time around. I just saw Pam upstairs, so I’m pretty sure she’s dead, too.” _If Patricia really is here, then so is Nicky_. The thought seems to dawn on Steve at the same time, green eyes locking with brown as the worry began to blossom into full-on terror. The cousins race to the front doors with everyone else hot on their heels, the doors refusing to budge even as Steve rams his shoulder against them.

“No,” Kimberly growls, ramming against the sturdy wood until Cathy pulled her away.

“They’re stuck again,” Steve tells the others, a distinctive tremble of fear in his voice.

“Except they’re not,” Nick fills in, watching on with fire burning in his gaze. He was just as frustrated as the others, but he was forcing himself not to react. Reactions are what the house feeds off of, but Kimberly would like to see how anyone else would respond knowing their child was running around on a property where ghosts liked to commit murder freely and gladly. “Ellen wants to feast on us and that can’t happen if she lets us out.”

“Emery, isn’t that your mom’s car?” Emery and Kim join Steve at one of the windows, spotting the familiar Volvo with its powder blue paint job and cloudy headlights.

“Yeah, it’s Mommy’s little scootabout,” he confirms, a strangled sob escaping. Sister arches a brow as she turns to look at Emery, opening her mouth to ask something when he cuts her off. “Oh, don’t give me that look. She came up with the name when I was still a kid to distract me from the fact that my dad was sick, alright? And Nicky loves it, too.”

“Looks like she’s blocking another car,” Nick states. And now that Kimberly could tear her gaze away from the empty booster seat, she could make out the form of a nicer, albeit old, car just behind Patricia’s. “Doesn’t look as though anyone’s in it from here, though.”

“Probably running through the woods,” Steve grumbles, meeting Kimberly’s stare head-on. He was seeing her memories now, a family connection that was running both ways now that they’d come back to the start of it all. Was he seeing a smaller version of herself talking to a dead man at the very edge of the woods or was he seeing Frederick pushing his way through the foliage in search of a missing wife? “I’m gonna go check the kitchen door.”

“I’ll come with you,” Sister mumbles, hands tugging anxiously on the hem of her top. Nick looked ready to follow, but his lips thinned out when Steve shakes his head. It was subtle, and Kimberly probably wouldn’t have thought anything about it if she didn’t see the lingering touch of fingers against fragile cheekbones in her mind’s eye.

“Kimmy, try reaching out for Nicky in case he really is out there.” She nods, looking back out the window with dread settling in her belly like a lead weight. What if Nicholas really is out there somewhere? He didn’t know how to handle spirits, let alone ones that could actually reach out and touch him. Hell, he was just now getting a handle on the whole stranger danger routine!

One thing was for certain, if any of those dead bastards tried to harm even a hair on her baby’s head, she’d find a way to kill them all over again.

**~::*::~**

Nicky follows slowly after the dark-haired man that was leading him through the trees, his brown eyes fixed on the stranger’s shoes. He didn’t like looking people in the eye most of the time, it wasn’t comfortable and he couldn’t understand why his teachers got upset when he’d rather look at the shiny bracelets they wore or the buttons on their shirts. This man didn’t seem to mind it and Nicky was grateful—or as close to grateful as he could understand at only four years old.

The stranger liked to talk a lot and Nicky liked to listen to the soft tones of his voice as he went on and on about the stars. Nicky’s mommy did that too, talked even though Nicky never talked back to her; she didn’t mind as he focused more on her pretty rings than her eyes. His mommy was great and his daddy was great and this stranger made funny faces whenever Nicky held out a small hand and passed it right through the shiny buttons on his coat, so he wasn’t too bad.

“And there’s so many constellations,” the stranger was saying as they finally came out into the sunshine again. He was smiling as he knelt in front of Nicky, teeth stained yellow in places from the stinky things Nicky’s daddy called cigarettes. “My sister and I used to go out every night and just watch the stars appear.”

Nicky nods to show he was listening, gaze roving around the sprawling lawn as he took in the dead grass that made him itch where it grazed the bit of skin visible between his pants and his shoes. He was a good listener even if no one else knew that, his favorite thing to listen to being the tapes he has about teaching doggies new tricks. He didn’t even have to talk to make Bear learn to beg, he just hand to hold his hand a certain way and the doggie would understand perfectly.

“Look who’s gained some common sense, my little one.” Nicky follows the stranger’s finger, smiling when he spots his parents running outside. “Run to them and do not leave them. This house wants you dearly and I’m not always strong enough to protect you, Nicholas.” Nicky’s brows furrow as he looks up at the stranger, pointing up at him and then making the sign for _name_. “Alfred Thomas Airey, at your service.”

Nicky’s smile widens and he runs into the waiting arms of his mommy, firmly ignoring the angry spirit hovering nearby with the bright red bandana wrapped round her head.


	14. The Side Effects of Possession

Chasing a half-crazed professor through the woods with her son on her hip wasn’t exactly how Kimberly envisioned her afternoon when she woke up this morning, but here she is. Miller obviously saw something his logic couldn’t handle and it sent him spiraling if the way he was running around sans one shoe was anything to go off of.

“Emery,” she yells after a good fifteen minutes of searching,” Emery, wait! Hold on!”

“We have to help him,” her husband says, breathing hard when he finally skids to a stop.

“We can’t even find him.” And it was true, there was no more crashing sounds of someone fighting their way past the hanging limbs of the numerous weeping willows or leaves crunching underfoot. Hell, she couldn’t even hear the panicked yells anymore and the house was half-concealed by the trees and vines. “Let’s just get back inside and tell the others, alright?”

“But—” He cuts himself off, gaze trained on something that Kimberly wasn’t able to see.

“Who is it?”

“Vic.” His voice is strained and tears have gathered in his eyes as he continues to stare on in horror, taking a stumbling step back and nearly tripping over a rock. Kimberly reaches out a hand to steady him, squeezing his elbow reassuringly. “Go, go right now!” She hesitates just long enough to hear Nicky whimper and then she’s sprinting towards the house, Emery right behind her in a mad dash for the closest thing to safety they had out here.

“Em—”

“Keep going!” The three of them practically crash into the house, Emery only stopping long enough to slam the door shut before following Kimberly towards the end of the entrance hall where three others had gathered. Nick looked baffled, but took the child all the same when Nicky reached for him, letting him hide his face in the crook of the psychic’s neck. Kimberly wasn’t going to complain considering her son usually refused to let strangers anywhere near him, but he was heavier than she remembered and it was a welcome break. _They must share a wavelength or something_.

“What happened,” Joyce demands. Kimberly tried not to meet her gaze for too long, not liking the blooming insanity she could see there. “What’s with the hysterics?”

“I saw Vic, that’s what! This stupid house has him lurking around in the woods like the big bad wolf!” Emery was breathless after the run, but he kept his back straight and his chin up. It was more than could be said for Kimberly, she was bent over with her hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath. _I really gotta start going to the gym again_. “And I saw the professor, too. He was real enough to push me against a damn tree.”

“That’s not possible—”

“Like hell it isn’t! I just ran after him through those woods trying to get him to calm down! If he isn’t real, then I’m the Easter Bunny! As if that wasn’t bad enough, my mother’s somewhere behind the house and I can’t even help her because those _things_ keep popping up like some twisted version of Whack-A-Mole.”

“Perhaps we should all just take a breath,” Nick advises, voice soft as he rubbed his hand over Nicholas’s back in gentle circles that soothed the four year old.

“I’ll calm down when I’m as far from here as I can get! As soon as I get out of here, I’m packing my family up and we’re moving to Canada!”

“What we need to do is leave while we still can,” Kimberly states firmly, using her patented Mom Voice to capture everyone’s attention. “The doors are unstuck, so let’s gather everyone up and get the hell outta dodge.” It’s the sound of footsteps that has Kimberly’s gaze snapping to the left, spotting Sister as she runs up to them.

“Joyce,” Sister calls, worry eating away at her,” it’s Annie, you have to come quick. Sh-she’s unconscious and Steve’s trying to wake her up, but….” There are tears in her eyes and she seems to be on the verge of a panic attack as she looks on at the group. “Please, just hurry.”

“Where is she,” Joyce asks, the crazed light leaving her eyes if only for a moment. This was a real-world problem, one that could affect her investigation, and she needed it solved as soon as possible.

“In the parlor near the kitchen.” Nicky squirms until Nick sets him down, and then he’s running through the halls as if his life depends on it. Kim and Emery waste no time in chasing after him with the others in tow, Nicky seeming to know exactly where he was going as he burst into one of several rooms and didn’t stop until he had his arms wrapped around Bear’s neck with his face buried in the dog’s fur.

Steve gives them all a bewildered look, but doesn’t question how a child had known exactly where to go. He holds Kimberly’s gaze for a moment, projecting old memories of Nicky and Bear’s interactions over the years until she gives a slight nod of her head. _Some type of psychic ability that works with animals_ , she thinks, _a real-life dog whisperer_.

“The phone’s working again,” Cathy says, voice uneven as she holds up the handset. “Should I call an ambulance?”

“Of course not,” Joyce snaps, looking up from where she’d been studying Annie. That’s when Kimberly takes the time to really look at the teenager, the way Annie’s eyes moved behind closed eyelids in REM sleep yet her thoughts still floated high above her. She’s getting stronger and that could be a problem if they didn’t leave soon.

“To hell with that,” Emery fumes,” I’m getting my family the fuck out of this house!” He storms off, Kimberly making to go after him when she felt a slight tug on the hem of her shorts and looked down to find Bear holding her in place by his teeth. She knew from past experience that Bear could hold her down with ease if he really wanted to, his muscles bunching as if preparing to tackle her.

“Bear, release,” she commands with a hard tone. The Husky lets out a deep, rumbling growl in response and tugs hard enough that she would’ve fallen had Nick not grabbed her arm. He straightens her with a kind smile, though it disappears when the phone Cathy still held let out a horrendous screech. She slams it back down in the cradle, lips pursed in frustration.

“Honey, can you hear me,” Joyce asks, and Kimberly notes that Annie’s woken up. Annie says nothing as she sits up, brown eyes looking around the people gathered and then misting slightly as if she were fighting some sort of trance. “Annie?”

“That’s not Annie right now.” The teenager tears her gaze away from the dolls and glances at Kimberly, her posture all wrong for it to be Annie. “What’s wrong, Ellen? Tired of my family stopping you from playing your little mind games so you have to use the body of a little girl to do it? I’ve heard of desperate people doing desperate things, but this really takes the cake.”

“You are so different than my sister,” Annie says, accent cultured and practiced,” but you are no less welcome here, Kimberly. And you’ve brought sweet Nicholas as well; he’ll be a fine host one day, a Rimbauer through and through.” She smiles, sharp and cutting as she holds Kimberly in place using Annie’s telekinesis, keeping her from scooping Nicky up in her arms. “These halls are so lonely these days, lacking in the power Rose Red needs to keep building. You’ll forgive me for insisting that you and your friends stay a while longer.”

Kimberly’s seen the house respond to things enough times by now to know that the slamming doors are a different kind of response, one brought on by Annie’s need to be understood. The windows rattle at the force and small cracks splinter the wood of the doorjamb, the very foundation seeming to shift and groan in protest until the silence fell just as suddenly.

“You should go and check on your husband, he might go into shock otherwise.” And that cold smile never left her face, the door to the parlor swinging open silently.

“Stay with Nicky while I get Emery,” Steve instructs, already running out of the room. Cathy and Nick go after him and it takes everything Kimberly has to stay in the room. Bear still has a tight hold on Kimberly’s shorts, his panting breaths hot against her leg. Annie seemed to deflate after that, falling back against Sister like a marionette that’s had its strings cut. When she opens her eyes again, she’s back to herself with no Ellen around.

“Are you okay,” Sister asks, cupping her face gently. “Back to earth again?” Annie nods, staring around in the same way Nicky did sometimes. She sits up, though remains slouched against her sister as though she didn’t have the strength to stay upright on her own.

Joyce digs through a medical bag that seemed to have come out of nowhere—Kim knows she must have grabbed during the run to the parlor, but rational thinking isn’t something she has time for right now, thank you—and readies a piece of gauze with some medical tape. “Hey, sweetie,” Joyce implores,” can you face me for a second?” Annie presses her forehead against Sister’s shoulder, paying no mind to the nasty gash near her hairline or the forming bruise surrounding it.

“Annie, be a big girl for me. Let her help you.” She frowns but moves her head enough that Joyce can patch her up, looking none-too-pleased about the whole thing. Kimberly didn’t blame her, she probably just wanted to sleep for a few hours after being possessed.

“Do you feel dizzy, hon? Maybe a little lightheaded or sleepy?” Annie doesn’t say anything, cheek pressed against Sister’s shoulder as her gaze became unfocused. She was drifting off, flying high above everyone as she tried to pull her thoughts together into something she could understand better. She wasn’t a mute, Kimberly’s heard her giggling and talking on occasion, but she wasn’t a big fan of talking when there wasn’t a good reason. “How about we stand up for a second?” Sister nods and all three of them stand, Bear releasing his grip on Kimberly in favor of sitting protectively beside Nicky with his tail wrapped around his ankles.

“I’m gonna go check on Em,” Kimberly says, taking her son’s hand gently in hers. “C’mon, kiddo, let’s go find your daddy.” He makes the sign for _follow_ and Bear lets out a soft bark and trots beside them as they start to walk. Bear had picked up sign language surprisingly well, even the stuff Nicky had made up before he started classes.

 _At least my baby has some protection inside this monstrosity_.


	15. Knights in Distress

As night fell, Kimberly found herself sitting in an armchair with her son curled up in her lap, his head tucked under her chin and his breaths deep as he slumbered. It wouldn’t hard for her to peek inside to see that his dreams were of a warm afternoon in a park filled with all his favorite things, but her mind was elsewhere. Actually, it was still in this house, this very room, but it wasn’t her family she was seeing.

The color seemed to drain away the farther her thoughts drifted, replaced by furnishings that were brand new instead of just restored by careful hands; moonlight was filtering in through the window and highlighting the form of a young woman that looked to be in her mid-thirties, rich dark hair spilling across her shoulders. She was beautiful in that fragile, porcelain doll sort of way, the blue of her eyes shadowed by guilt as she turned from the view.

She wore only a simple nightdress and a robe, her feet covered by silk slippers that let her walk silently out of the billiards room. Kimberly followed closed behind, nerves making her stomach cramp as they head down the long stretch of hall that led to the entrance hall. _Something bad is going to happen_ , she realizes, drawing in a sharp gasp. _It’s the night she disappears_.

“Was this in the journal?” Kimberly jumps as Steve appears next to her, his voice echoing in the deep gloom that had taken over the house. He was still dressed in the jeans, dark blue tee, and green flannel he’d been wearing all day, brown hair tousled near the front from him running a hand over it.

“No,” Kimberly says, shaking her head. “It ended the day before she was swallowed up.” There had been a passage about her guilt, how she always wished her children were Frederick’s by blood, but nothing about actually being taken by the house. “‘This house clings to grief and death like a child would cling to its mother, making my own guilt sing. I hear whispering in the night, the house shifting and stretching like a living thing until I find myself unable to sleep. I will not let it stake a claim on my children, though, I refuse to let it steal my babies from me.’”

“Except it stole one anyway.”

“Alfred, it was 1934 and he was far enough on the property for his spirit to be trapped.” She saw that too sometimes, felt the searing heat at her back and bits of metal tearing through her as a car exploded. “I’m sure Gram was furious and gave old Ellen an earful.”

“This is what you see all the time? These memories?” She nods, stopping in a doorway and watching as Bess continued forward. Steve was warm as he came to stand beside her, and he got quiet as he realized what was about to happen.

Bess made it all the way across the room, one foot on the bottom step when the floor seemed to open up beneath her like a yawning mouth. She falls backwards without a sound, arms flailing in a blind attempt to save herself. The floor seals itself back up, a single slipper clattering to the ground and lying at the foot of the staircase as though hoping to join its owner.

Kimberly heaves a sad sigh, turning to look up at her cousin. There’s a sadness darkening his eyes that she hasn’t seen since they buried her mother, his shoulders tensed like he was expecting some creature to come barreling around the corner and kill them all with one blow.

“You need to come back now, Kimmy,” he murmurs, cupping her face in gentle hands. “Emery’s starting to suggest different ways to knock Annie out, so I need your help.” She squeezes her eyes closed, tearing herself out of the memory and not relaxing again until she felt the weight of her son against her chest. When she opens her eyes again, Steve’s standing across the room with his gaze on her to make sure she pulled through.

“Emery,” she says, voice rough,” that’s enough.”

“We just need her out cold for a few minutes, long enough to get off the property,” he insists, shaking almost violently as he fought the effects of blood loss.

“What would you do if someone was threatening our son like that? Huh?” He doesn’t meet her stare, focusing instead on the blood-soaked cloth wrapped around his hand and the remains of his fingers. “You wouldn’t stand for it, so don’t go turning into a hypocrite now. Set an example for Nicky.”

“Sorry if I can’t hold up to your expectations, sweetheart.” She winces at the harsh way he spoke, not used to that tone being directed at her. “Not all of us can keep up a sunny disposition while missing four fingers and having a nasty bit of information on that stupid reporter.”

“What do you know, Em?” She kept her voice soft, the mothering tone that comes out whenever someone she loves is sick. She found that it achieved the best results when Emery was in a foul mood.

“Let Nick be the bearer of bad news this time. I’m tired of being the unpleasant one.” If looks could kill, then the glare he’s sporting would have Sister dead on the ground by now. “Mister know-it-all over there has been reading my mind since I lost my fingers.” Nick flushes, but doesn’t comment on that as he straightens up from leaning over the pool table.

“The mirror library, yes,” he checks, continuing at Emery’s nod. “I’m afraid Mister Bollinger has claim to being Rose Red’s latest victim. It seems he dragged Emery’s mother into the library this afternoon and made her watch as he hung himself from the chandelier. After that, I’m not sure what happened to Miller or Patricia. Do you have any idea?”

“None whatsoever, thanks for asking. They’re running somewhere around this stupid place.” Annie begins to hum a familiar tune, playing with her dolls and not registering Steve as he pats down her long hair. Nicky mimics the noise, though he remains deep in sleep as his thoughts climb higher to join Annie’s.

“They’re on the same level,” Kimberly murmurs, looking between the two kids.

“I noticed that when I held him earlier,” Nick agrees. “Have you had him tested yet?”

“There’s one set up for August, but I think I already know what the doctor will conclude.” Nicky was autistic, but he was low on the spectrum and was able to handle touching as long as it was people he trusted. Still, there were days where Kimberly felt like a total failure, unable to do anything to ease Nicky’s bouts of anger or understand what it is he wants. It makes her wish she could read minds and figure out what it is her baby needs.

“At least he has someone here he can go to for help. Isn’t that right, Annie.” The teen doesn’t look up from her dolls, but Kimberly can see her sparing a quick smile in Nicky’s direction as though she’d just heard something funny. “You know, I can’t help but be curious about something,” Nick states fifteen minutes later, his long fingers playing with the cue ball. “Did you always view us as sacrifices or did you shove that possibility to the furthest corner of your mind and carry on like it was any given Tuesday?” Kimberly glances up from the book she’d been skimming, the conversation more interesting than James Patterson.

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“Don’t play the part of a fool, Joyce, it doesn’t suit you. Did you have any sort of backup plan in place in case you didn’t get any results? What if this place really was the dead cell you promised it to be?”

“Stop it!” The shout has Nicky tightening his grip on Kimberly’s shirt, eyes fluttering open as he was yanked out of dreamland. “If I’d known you were crazy, then I would’ve hired someone else for this trip.” Except Nick was the sanest person in the room and the unhinged smile Joyce turned on everyone else only seemed to confirm that. “D’you see how crazy he is?” She went to set her hands on Steve’s shoulders, but jerks back when Nick slams the little white ball down on the pool table.

“I’m a mind-reader and that’s why you chose me. Now sit down before I tell everyone here what you’ve been obsessing over for the past two hours.” Steve and Joyce do just that, Joyce staring ahead of her as Nick comes the kneel beside the leather armchair. “Rose Red will never give you what you want. Ellen Rimbauer designed it to break hearts as hers was broken, to hurt as she was hurt.” _To kill the way she always wanted to kill_ , Kimberly adds silently.

“Then we have to leave before it—”

“Kills us,” Nick interrupts Cathy with ease. “No, only killing us would be too merciful. If we die here, then the house will only use us as batteries until all the psychic power we have has run down. “The only way we’re leaving here is if we can find out what’s keeping the doors and windows locked.”

“It’s Annie doing it,” Emery grumbles. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out. She’s doing it because all the ghosts and ghouls are telling her that it’s the only way she’ll have friends, that this is her home and to leave it would break something in her. She can’t understand that the house is lying to her. Joyce does, though, she’s always known and that’s why she wanted Annie here in the first place.”

“Emery’s right.” Nick sighs, standing up and moving closer to Steve in order to put some space between him and Joyce. “You’ve got enough sensitive equipment here to pick up any sort of phenomenon, yet you still wanted psychics. What can we tell you that all your tools can’t, Joyce?”

“You’re all nuts,” Joyce states. She laughs, but the sound is too loud and the cadence reminds Kimberly of the residents in Doctor Seward’s asylum. _Would she be the house’s Renfield, then? Forced to do its bidding while hoping for a reward?_

“No, we’re batteries. You said during your lecture that what we’d be doing was essentially applying electricity to the muscles of a dead frog, but it’s more like the lightning that brought Frankenstein’s monster to life. Annie’s been the one to keep the ball going, but it was Steve and Kimberly that got it rolling in the first place. They have blood ties to the house, they’re the ones it really wants so that it has the complete set. Now that little Nicholas is here, it’s going to tighten its grip to achieve its goal.”

“Last time I checked, me and Kimberly wanna get out of here more than anyone else,” Steve asserts. “Nicky’s little ability hasn’t even fully formed yet, so it’s not him either.”

“True as that may be, Ellen’s still using you the way she is Annie. You must at least sense it.”

“Well, I don’t!” Steve’s eyes glaze over as a memory takes him, the second one tonight that Kimberly’s aware of. She focuses on his thoughts and follows the familiar cold straight to the attic where a younger version of her cousin was staring with trepidation up at Ellen. His older self was standing in the shadows, just out of reach of the colored light the fell onto the floor and turned sawdust to shades of blood red and dark green. “Can you see this?”

“Yeah,” she assures him, resting a hand on his arm. “But you need to come back before she can sink her claws into you.” He nods and they drop back into themselves, Sister sending him a worried frown.

“Are you alright,” she asks, leaning forward with her arms on her knees.

“That wasn’t real,” Steve says in answer. “The house is trying to get to me.”

“Are you sure about that,” Nick asks, resting a hand on Steve’s shoulder.

“Not even remotely, but it’s all I’ve got right now.”

“Then let’s stick with what we know,” Emery snaps, almost vicious. “Get the kid unconscious and, if the doors don’t open, we’ll work from there.”

“No one is going to hurt this child,” Joyce hisses, sliding to the floor in order to wrap her arms around Annie. It would almost seem sweet if the hold itself wasn’t so possessive, the gleam in her eyes not so manic.

“Of course we’re not,” Cathy soothes, though she didn’t look too convincing. She was wearing down, stretched too thin after everything that had happened. When people get like that, they’re capable of doing anything if it means surviving.

“And there’s the rub,” Nick announces sadly. “We’re in trouble, ladies and gentlemen, very big trouble.” Silence falls over the room after that, everyone lost in their own thoughts about what was happening. Kimberly barely even noticed when Nicky got down in the floor to play with Bear, watching on in vague amusement as her son went through the different hand motions that had the Husky doing all sorts of tricks.

Kimberly was almost asleep when she heard the shifting of cloth, her half-lidded gaze falling on where her husband looked to be sitting up. Struggling to, anyway, since he only had one hand to push himself up with. “Don’t even think about it,” she mumbles drowsily, Emery falling back on the couch with a scowl. “She couldn’t hear you even if what you were planning to say made any sense to her.”

“Yes, she’s not in the room with us half the time,” Nick agrees. “I can’t see her thoughts.”

“They’re too high,” Steve adds.

“Like Rapunzel in her tower, though her hair’s been cut too short to be of any use in climbing.” Kimberly can hear Steve’s thoughts echoing around in the empty space, jumbled like they’d hit a wall and fell to pieces, but then Annie was glancing up at Steve just long enough for Kimberly to realize what had happened. _He can make his thoughts go up high, he can reach her_.

 _‘Think you can convince her to let us go?’_ Kimberly’s thought was quiet, but Steve picks up on it all the same as he looks to her. He still seemed shocked to be able to do this sort of thing, like when they were children and got away with stealing cookies out of the jar on top of the refrigerator while all the adults remained unaware. He gives a curt shake of his head and Kimberly shrugs, already expecting that to be the answer.

The floorboards squeak as Cathy stands, one of the flashlights in hand as she heads for the door of the billiards room. “Where are you going, Cathy?”

“I thought some iced tea would be nice,” she answers, pausing halfway to the door.

“You shouldn’t go alone,” Steve reminds her. He looked almost panicked, the expression only deepening when Cathy nearly blinds herself by having the flashlight facing her as she flips the switch on it.

“I’m not, I’ve got God with me.” She leaves without another word, Nick trailing after her once he could no longer hear her footsteps. Kimberly just huddles down further in the armchair, exhausted as she fights off the memories trying to bombard her. She couldn’t handle them all right now and she wasn’t even sure if half of them were the real deal or just some of Ellen’s tricks.

 _If that bitch thinks she’s getting her hands on my baby, then she’s got another thing coming_.

**~::*::~**

Kimberly finds herself walking to the door before a thought is fully formed, mind wandering far ahead of her down a dark corridor filled with cobwebs and half finished walls. She needed to get there before something bad happened that she could’ve stopped, she has to move now if she’s going to make it.

“Kimmy, where are you going,” Emery asks, his voice muffled as though reaching her from underwater. And maybe she was underwater, all of this just a dream she’s having after falling asleep in the bathtub again. Finding out she almost drowned was preferable to all of this.

“I have to go help,” she mutters, padding out of the room bare-footed. No one chased after her and she was glad to be alone for a while, even if it meant being the horror movie cliché that usually gets axed before she makes it down one of the spooky hallways. Anything’s better than the mounting tension, so she keeps moving forward.

Whispers seem to guide her, the vague outline of a man keeping her from getting lost as she navigated her way to the upper levels. He was joined a moment later by another man, this one’s hair a dark brown that matched Kimberly’s instead of a washed-out gold. Frederick and Alfred, she knows without really having to think about it, forming their own version of a secret service. Kimberly snickers at the thought and Alfred winks at her over his shoulder.

“You’re a brave girl for leaving that room,” he tells her, facing front again,” though a bit stupid for coming here in the first place.”

“Are you the pot or the kettle in this,” she shoots back, sounding very much like she was talking to a normal person instead of her dead great-uncle. After all, weirder things had most definitely happened in this place. “Where are we going, exactly?”

“Focus and you’ll understand.”

“To save Nick and Cathy.”

“You got your intelligence from me,” Frederick informs her smugly. Alfred snorts, but has the good sense to sober his expression when his father shoots him a challenging look. “Not a word from the clown section, Al.”

“Clown section is officially closed,” Alfred nods, but he’s smiling and he nudges Frederick with his shoulder. And, God, Alfred is so young to be trapped here away from the rest of the world. He was barely twenty-four, still boasting traces of baby fat in his cheeks that his smiles made obvious. His father was fifty-five, but was still lean with barely any wrinkles (and Kimberly was hoping she’d look that good in her fifties, too) to crease the tanned skin of his face.

“You okay back there, sweet girl?” She blinks out of her thoughts and gives an encouraging nod in response. She loved seeing the two men interact, loved knowing that they were still a family even if they were dead and trapped in enemy territory. They walk another few feet in silence until they reach a corner, the two dead men coming to a halt. “This is as far as we can go.”

“Can’t walk where the halls aren’t entirely finished yet. Go and save your friends, Kimberly, and know that you have our love.”

“I’ve always known that,” she says with a shy smile. She pushes onwards, leaving her guides behind as she enters part of the house that was under construction. Wooden horses were put off to the side, holding hammers and saws of all kinds, painstakingly drawn designs taking up rolls of blueprints. The smell of sawdust hangs heavy here and she’s reminded of that memory Steve had buried in childhood the same way he had buried Easter eggs in the community sandbox.

The further down the hall she goes, the clearer she can hear talking and she quickens her pace. The talking turns to screaming after a bit and Kimberly starts to run, not hesitating as she rounds a corner into a finished part of the house. She could see Nick just up ahead, his terrified gaze fixed on something in front of him. With a grunt, she tackles him out of the way, both of them tumbling through a wall like it was made of air, landing on a dust-strewn floor somewhere else.

“God, I’m way too out of shape for this shit.”


	16. Badass Grandmas and Falling Stones

“Where are we,” Nick asks, pushing against the solid wall they’d just fallen through,” and how the hell did you find me?”

“No clue on the first one, but my ancestors helped me with the second part of your question. They kind of formed the I Hate Ellen brigade back in the thirties.” She winces as she gets to her feet, shoulder throbbing from how she landed on it. The hall they were in was disused and dark, probably meant for servants instead of the Rimbauers.

“We have to get to Cathy, she’s in trouble.”

“The panel we fell through should let us back out in that hall again.” Sore shoulder aside, she and Nick still throw themselves against the wall as hard as they could, but the wood didn’t seem to want to budge. “Come on already! Let us out!” She tries once more before backing up with a sigh. “Kick it.”

“What?”

“You heard me, Nick, kick the goddamn wall.” He takes a step back and braces himself before bringing his foot down hard against the wall, the panel opening and slamming against the outside wall with a deafening _bang!_ “That’s the spirit.” She pats him on the back and shuffles out of the cramped hall, only to find herself in a completely different part of the house than they’d started out in.

“Where are we now?”

“Upper level, probably the third floor.” She takes a good look around, shifting through memories until she finds a useful one. “If we keep following the hall to the right, then we should come up near the attic.”

“But shouldn’t we be going down?”

“Up is down in this place, Nick.” He makes a resigned noise, but doesn’t argue as the pair start to walk. They went like that for a good ten minutes, taking turns seemingly at random until they found a set of roughhewn stairs that went almost straight up to what Kimberly knew would be a hidden panel in the ceiling. Nick and Kim share a look, nerves bursting in her chest and making her heart beat faster.

“Well, ladies first.”

“I’m not that old fashioned if you wanna take the lead.” Except neither of them wanted to be the first one to enter the attic when there could be something lurking up there. Wasn’t that always the case in haunted houses like this one? The big bad wolf skulking around, just waiting for prey to come to him as they follow the plot of a b-movie. What’s to stop the house from shifting again and locking them up there for the rest of their lives?

“You know, we’d die gruesomely in a horror film.”

“Without a doubt.” But they heave weary sighs and force themselves to move, Nick the first to climb up the stairs and forcing the hidden panel open with the sound of wood cracking. When Kimberly gets closer, she can see a rusted lock that had been wrenched out of the frame from the blunt force of Nick’s shoulder.

“Watch out, the floor’s not what it used to be.” She understands what he means once she’s in the attic proper, the floor beneath her feet warped in places from the damp. The attic, it seems, has been pretty much abandoned all these years, like even Ellen’s mojo can’t save the entire house from the elements. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Shh, just listen.” She strains to pick up anything that wasn’t the house settling for the night as the temperatures began to drop. “Is that Steve?” She reaches out with her other senses, hears the familiar rambling of her cousin’s thoughts just a few rooms over. “C’mon, he’s this way.” They follow the barely discernable sounds through two more doorways until they’re in the highest part of Rose Red, the Tower Folly boasting a stained glass window of green leaves and a blooming rose.

“Nick,” Cathy breathes with a smile,” thank God you’re alright! When I opened the door and didn’t see you, I thought for sure the house had eaten you.”

“No such luck, I’m afraid. Kimberly came to my rescue with a tackle worthy of the NFL.” Kimberly hides her shy smile by ducking her head, suddenly feeling self-conscious as Nick claps a hand on her shoulder in thanks. “What are you lot doing up here? Oh, and who’s our friend?”

“April,” Sister answers quietly. Kimberly glances up and then follows Nick’s gaze to the corpse lying on the ground, clothed in a white gown with skin pulled taunt over bones, withered arm tucked against the chest. April looked more like an overcooked turkey now, but Kimberly doubted any turkey in the world had _fucking_ _fangs_ like some kind of vampire.  

“How’s that even possible? She’s been missing since 1917.”

“And my great-uncle’s been dead since 1934, but that didn’t stop him or his dad from leading me to you,” Kimberly remarks, crossing her arms over her chest. “Let’s just get back to the others before we find something even worse, like Snape bullying kids in the pantry.”

“Not a fan of old Severus I take it,” Steve asks, looping an arm around her shoulders.

“He reminds me of my ninth grade history teacher. Remember how that guy tried to fail me because Daddy beat him up when they were in high school?”

“Oh yeah, and then Uncle Sam beat him up again when he found out. Good times.” He urges her towards a new set of stairs, but she hesitates a moment before digging out her cell phone; it didn’t have any signal for her to call for help, but the camera worked just fine as she snapped a picture of the corpse.

“Now at least we have proof, so Joyce can’t get bitchy.”

**~::*::~**

Joyce still got pretty bitchy.

“Let me get this straight,” Kimberly grouses,” you have no problem believing in a haunted house that grows by itself, but you draw the line at Steve’s aunt lurking around in dark corners for eighty-four years? I took a fucking picture, Joyce!” She holds the phone up for emphasis, shaking it in the so-called scientist’s face.

“Pictures can easily be faked.”

“Yeah, because I’m tech savvy enough to do something like that when I still write out all my manuscripts in pencil!” She lets out a sharp breath and jams her phone back in her pocket, pacing the length of the room to keep from doing something she’d regret later. Okay, so punching Joyce in the face probably wouldn’t be on her list of regrets, but Nicky shouldn’t see his mom lose her shit like that. “You know what? _Fine_. Believe what you want to, but don’t come crying to me when Sukeena or Ellen try to pull a Bela Lugosi on your ass.”

“Maybe you should get some sleep, Kimberly. You look like your half an hour away from a complete breakdown.”

“Can you blame her for that,” Steve demands, hands on his hips as he turns to level a glare at Joyce. “For God’s sake, she’s been having other people’s memories thrown at her left and right since she got here, and that’s not exactly a comfortable thing to deal with at the best of times! Stop being so obtuse!”

“Oh my, that’s a dreadfully big word for a college dropout.” Kimberly lunges forward with a snarl, Steve catching her by the waist and hauling her back before her fist could connect with Joyce’s cheek.

“What a sharp tongue you have, Grandma,” Sister comments dryly.

“Another country heard from,” Emery quips, voice shaking as he grew weaker. Seeing her husband looking so miserable seemed to drain the fight right out of Kimberly, Steve adjusting his hold so that he was holding her up instead of restraining her. If they didn’t get Emery to the hospital soon, then he’d be dead come morning. “I’m curious, how often do you fantasize about your sister dying?”

“How often do you fantasize about that happening to your son or your wife?” Emery looked taken aback at that, breath stuttering as he glanced to the curly-haired little boy using Bear as a pillow. “It hurts to have someone talk like that, doesn’t it? Maybe think before you speak next time, you troll.”

“At least my son isn’t helping this house murder us.”

“Yes, he is,” Kimberly murmurs, dropping down into the armchair she’d abandoned just a couple hours ago. It had been a long walk back to the billiards room and her bare feet had the aches to prove it if anyone wanted proof. “The house is amplifying his powers since he’s…. Since he’s technically of the Rimbauer bloodline. He and Annie have been communicating since they met. Isn’t that right, Nicky?” Nicky looks up from the domino he was holding, giving her a bright smile in response.

“No, he’s barely got any ties to the Rimbauers.”

“I’ll tell you all about it if we get out of here. Until then, try to keep those comments to yourself. Like I said earlier, if you don’t want it said about your son, then you don’t say it about another child. Simple as that.”

“Can you talk to him,” Cathy asks. “Maybe convince him to help us instead?”

“His thoughts are getting too far away for me to reach.” She gives an unamused smile, hanging her feet over one of the chair’s arms. “He’s copying Annie’s processes because he understands them better. She’s more on his level than any of us.”

“What about you, Steve? Do you think you can talk to Annie?”

“Not in here,” Steve shrugs. “It’s like the house has formed its own little forcefield around her and I can’t get through it.” Kimberly’s eyes close as the house’s incessant creaking continues, going up an octave before, out of freaking _nowhere_ , a full-on gust of wind blows through the room. She couldn’t hear anything over the howling, not even her squeal of surprise when she tumbles to the hard floor and something in her shoulder seems to give.

Emery was up and moving while Kimberly remained on the ground, stumbling against the force of the wind to cover their son from the barrage of leaves and God knows what else that was being blown around. She grits her teeth, trying to push herself up only to have an intense burning in her shoulder make her collapse back to the floor with a strained hiss.

Through watering eyes, she watches as Annie turns to glare up at Emery, like he was some monster hiding inside her closet or under her bed. There was more than that anger, though, there was a deadly intent that made Kimberly let out a choked sob. As if guided by a puppet master, the suit of armor across the room begins to move, it hands wrapped tightly around the shaft of an ornamental ax.

“Emery, duck,” Kimberly screams, watching on in horror as he drops to the floor barely a second before the ax swung. The armor swings again, embedding the ax deep in the floor barely an inch from Emery’s head before the suit collapsed in pieces to the ground around him. “Emery! Oh, Jesus….” She crawls over to him, using her good hand in order to make sure he didn’t have any more injuries. “Are you—” She cuts herself off, looking around as she realized the wind had completely died down once the armor had crumpled.

“Cathy, I think it’s your turn to help us out,” Steve says, looking to her even as she flinched back.

“No,” she protests. “I can’t—”

“We don’t have any other options,” Nick reminds her, voice soft yet firm. “Everyone else has tried to get us out of this place and now it’s your turn to step up to the base. You can do this.” She doesn’t look very reassured, but she nods all the same and lets out a heavy sigh. “Atta girl.”

“I need markers and some paper. If we’re going to do this, then I might as well get Annie to help me out.”

“Kimberly and I will fetch it. I think I saw some in the entrance hall when we first came in.” Kimberly nods and leaves Steve to help Emery up onto the couch, walking out to the long table set up in the entrance hall. Nick stopped her as she went to grab the sketchpads, pressing gently at her shoulder. “Is it bad?”

“It’s probably just a bruised muscle,” she answers, able to use the arm now. “I’ll be fine.”

“Will you, though? Will any of us?”

“We have to be.” She grabs up the books and markers, her and Nick making a fast trip back into the billiards room as Joyce began a rant on why they shouldn’t try this. Automatic writing wasn’t nearly the safest thing to be doing in an obviously haunted house, but it’s the only option they haven’t tried. If this doesn’t work, then Kimberly’s not above using Joyce as a battering ram. _Surely her skull’s thick enough to get those doors open_.

When they get back into the room, Cathy has seated herself on the floor across from Annie and she takes the materials with a nervous smile. Nicky and Bear are sitting on either side of their new friend, the dog’s tail thumping rhythmically against the rug. Cathy works silently to get everything organized the way she wants it, paying no mind to the way the others were watching her or how Steve was physically holding Joyce back much the same way he’d done to Kimberly just ten minutes before.

“Would you like to try this with me, Annie,” she asks. The teenager’s gaze meets Steve’s across the room and then she’s taking a blue marker from Cathy. “Let’s do it together, alright?” Annie gives a slight incline of her head that might be a nod, watching curiously as Cathy begins to draw little swirls along the first page. Annie mimics the motions, her swirls tight and close together.

“Great job, sweetheart,” Steve praises, drowning out the soft begging Joyce was doing. Sister joins in, nodding when Annie looks to her before her attention focuses back on the paper.

As Annie continues to go, the stone flower vases explode in large chunks that scuff the floor in places, a breeze picking back up. It’s like the house was starting to fall apart at Annie’s silent command, Kimberly scooping her son up to keep him from being hit by anything. Lightbulbs burst in their sockets, a shower of sparks raining down that burned whenever they struck the bare skin of her arms.

Not even the sound of glass shattering could make Kimberly look away from the sight in front of her, Annie writing with a soft smile curving her lips upwards. She was happy, loved helping people even if no one understood quite how she was doing it. But Steve did, Steve had a direct line to her in this house and Annie was soaking up the praise like a sponge.

Like all the other times before when something had happened, things went quiet so suddenly that the lack of noise almost hurt. Papers, the ones they’d brought in and the sheet music from the organ, fluttered to the ground around them, covering the floor like feathers.

“Joyce?” Kimberly turns at Steve’s voice, nearly tripping over her feet when she tries to back away. Joyce was striding across the room with a screwdriver in hand and Kimberly wasn’t about to have her son get stabbed when they were so close to getting out. “No!”  Joyce shoves Cathy and Sister out of her way, but she only gets within three feet of Annie when a face made of crackling flames lunges out of the fireplace, forcing her to fall backwards or get burned.

“Not there,” Emery chants, leaping off the couch,” not there, not there!” The face shoots back into the fireplace with a pained shriek, Emery’s decades old technique still proving useful. He grabs a handful of Kimberly’s shirt and tugs her with him towards the door, only stopping long enough to let out a sharp whistle that had Bear chasing after them. “We’re getting outta here now!”

“No arguments here,” she breathes out.

“What I wouldn’t give for a little morphine right now.”

“Make it to the hospital without passing out and I’ll make sure you get high as a kite, babe.” He lets out a weak laugh, but the sound morphs into a whine when his mother materializes in a mirror, shooting outward and wrapping her stubby fingers around his throat in a tight grasp.

“Come here, Emers,” she yells, the bottom half of her still trapped in the liquified glass. Her free had wraps around his wrist, shaking the hand with the missing fingers like it was another of her stuffed animals. “I wanna see if you’ve been cleaning your nails!” Patricia continues to ramble, which wasn’t much different than two days ago, but now she’s got black streaks running through her face and was so obviously dead that not even the Scooby gang would have a doubt.

“Help me,” he screams, reaching back with his free hand,” for God’s sake! Help me!”

“Fight her,” Cathy yells back to him. “For once in your miserable life, fight her!”

“Em, she’s not real,” Kimberly tries, doing her best to keep Nicky from seeing Patricia. “She’s just like Vic and all the others! Make her go away!” Emery struggles hard against her, arching back even as she weakens and sinks back into the glass as he chants the familiar phrase of _not there_.

Steve jumps in once he and the others fall out into the hall, grabbing Emery with both hands and pulling him back as the glass begins to harden again. “I’ve got ya,” he says breathlessly, patting Emery’s back. “Kimmy would never let me live it down if I didn’t save your ass at least once.” Kimberly feels a hysterical giggle rising in her throat, but it feels stuck.

“Stevie,” came a smooth voice from behind them. Ellen, basically just a skeleton in her white dress, was floating about a foot off the floor, a hammer clutched in her hands. “Here, take the hammer and help us build. You wanted it all those years ago and now’s your chance to join us.”

“Get the fuck away from my family!” Everyone’s heads snap to the right as Beatrice herself comes swooping in like death in a pale blue dress. And, hey, might as well wear beautiful clothes if you’re stuck as a ghost for seventy-eight years. Frederick and Alfred materialize on either side of her, though Kimberly doubts her great-gram would need their help with the amount of power crackling around her.

“Dear Bess, don’t you have a hallway to haunt?”

“I’ve learned a thing or two since our guests arrived.” And she was bringing her fist back even as she was walking, delivering a solid right hook that had Ellen flying backwards down a darkened hallway. With a prim little sniff, Beatrice turns to face the humans that were gawking up at her, a smug grin showing off pearly white teeth. “I’ve been wanting to do that for years now.”

“Oh,” Emery murmurs, breaking the stunned silence,” that’s where Kimmy gets it from.”

“Get out of here, dear ones, we’ll hold the others back.” Kimberly believed it, too. It was like having her family so close gave Beatrice a rush of strength and she had the stubborn will to put it to good use as she turned and started down the hall after Ellen with the men following behind her.

Nick urges the others forward and brings up the rear as they sprint out of the house, none of them stopping until they reached the water fountain in the front yard. The doors had swung shut again at some point, sealing the place shut from all outsiders. Kimberly wasn’t complaining, not when it meant safety for her baby boy.

“B-bad place,” Annie states,” bad house.”

“That’s right, Annie,” Steve agrees,” very bad.” A rumbling sound was growing steadily louder, but Kimberly wasn’t concerned since she was outside. Still on the property, yes, but the van was only a few feet away and she was absolutely certain that she could use it to ram the gates if she had to.

“It’s the stones again,” Sisters says, as though no one else would be confused by it. There was an explanation a moment later as a boulder crashed through the front doors like God had dropped it right out of the sky. More followed, crumbling mortar and stone like it was nothing, glass exploding out onto the lawn and glittering in the moonlight.

“Make her stop,” Cathy implores, sounding close to tears.

“I can’t.”

“And I don’t want her to,” Steve adds with a grim set to his jaw.

“Let her tear the place down,” Kimberly insists,” it’s the first good thing to happen here since the house was made.” And she meant it, to hell with the cursed family house that only brought bad things. And, as it turns out, watching giant stones crush parts of the house that tried multiple times to kill you and everyone you love is a type of therapy Kimberly never even knew she needed in her life.

“Let’s get out of here.” Everyone climbs back into the van, no long worrying about climbing over each other or that the AC only worked half the time, just that the stupid thing got them out of range of the stones. The van jerks slightly as a ball of flames explodes upwards into the sky, one of the larger stones having smashed Patricia’s car.

“Well, that’s one good thing that came out of this.”  

Steve puts the van in park just outside the gates, getting out to look at the damage. “Hey, Kimmy, look at this.” She joins him at the back of the van, the giggle finally breaking free once she spots her family wandering out into the front yard, looking unscathed and smiling as they slowly begin to float. It looks graceful as the three of them shift into little balls of light, disappearing as the skyline begins to lighten.

“My great-gram is a total badass.”


	17. Remembrance

The full group doesn’t meet up again for six months, gathering together in front of the house that nearly tore them apart. It was broad daylight, the July heatwave not yet arrived as the weatherman had predicted, and a light breeze was ruffling Kimberly’s hair as she looks at the spot where she’d seen three of her ancestors finally crossover. They’d deserved it after all the hell they’d gone through while stuck in this house.

Steve passes out the roses he’d bought earlier, one for each person present that also represented all the people they’d lost along the way and the eminent destruction of the family curse. He pauses in front of Nick, fingers brushing against the blond man’s as though the contact was the only thing keeping him sane.

“It’s really over, isn’t it,” she asks no one in particular.

“It really is,” Cathy confirms, smiling when she spots Nicky’s hand coming up to rest on the small bump of Kimberly’s belly. At three months pregnant, she could still get around just fine even if her husband and son didn’t like the thought of her moving too much. It seems Nicky’s inherited his father’s mile-wide protective streak after all. “Do you know what you’re having yet?”

“No, but we’re hoping for a little girl.” She smiles as well, resting her hand over Nicky’s and giving it a squeeze. He grins in return, nuzzling his cheek against her stomach before launching himself up into Emery’s arms. _A little girl_ , Kimberly knows already, _named for a great-great-grandmother she’d never meet that saved her mommy’s life_.

“We’ve decided to call it Bess until we go have the ultrasound,” Emery adds as though sensing Kimberly’s line of thoughts. “Freddy if it’s a little boy.” The appointment was later that day, scheduled as a way to escape the house in case either of them felt threatened.

“Those are wonderful names,” Cathy says, blue eyes bright behind her glasses. She was happy again, her smile genuine and not strained by fear. Her attention turns to the teenager on her right, watching as Annie twirls the rose around between her fingers. “Annie, do you know what roses mean?”

“Roses mean remember,” Annie says with a proud little smile. She was doing better now that she was used to them all, coming over the apartment every other Saturday to spend time with Nicky.

“That’s exactly right.”

“Thirty more minutes,” Steve tells them with a relived smile of his own. “Then we can all go get waffles until I find out if I’m having a little goddaughter in seven months.” He makes a face and shakes his head a little as his thoughts seem to shift from bright side to dark side. “Unless it’s as impatient as Nicky, then we’re looking at six months while in the middle of the biggest traffic jam in Seattle history.”

“We’re not repeating that,” Emery says. “If that happens, I’ll strangle you with a seatbelt.” But he was smiling and that softened his words, Steve smiling back in answer. They were getting along better, which kind of lent some truth to that saying about surviving near-death experiences with people. And if that wasn’t a saying, then it totally should be. Annie walking to the house is what snaps her back out of her own mind, Cathy making to go after her only to be stopped by Emery’s hand on her arm. “Don’t worry, I got her.”

“Yeah, they’re best buddies now that a house isn’t trying to eat us.” Emery pays him no mind, kneeling down next to Annie and watching as she sets her rose down on the dried leaves.

“Who’s that one for?” She doesn’t say anything, but he wasn’t expecting her to and just smiles broader. The others join them, setting their flowers down with the stems crisscrossing over each other.

“Hey, set this one down so Kimmy doesn’t have to bend over.” She rolls her eyes as the rose is snatched out of her hand, but doesn’t bother to argue. She’d tried it all of her last pregnancy and it worked about as well as a chocolate tea kettle. Steve winks at her, then he’s tugging playfully on a strand of Annie’s dark hair.

“Can you still reach her with your mind,” Cathy wonders.

“No, but we communicate pretty well now. Don’t we, Annie?” She grins and jumps up to hug him, giggling quietly as he spins on his heal. Kimberly’s phone chimes, the alarm making her nerves spike as it really hits her what all’s happening today. Not only will the house be torn down for good, she’s finding out what her baby is for certain. “You ready for this, Kimmy?”

“Beyond ready,” she nods, leading the way back to the cars. She and Emery had come in their own car, a nice little minivan that’s perfect for car seats, while the others had all arrived in Steve’s truck. The Watermans leave first with Steve following behind, the cars going separate ways once they reach the main section of the city.

It’s an hour later, when Steve’s working on his fourth stack of waffles and the others have all called it quits, when a text message comes through. He knows what it is without having to look at his phone, what the message would be and how it’d be phrased for the simple reason of having a direct line to his cousin’s thoughts still.

Beside him, Nick shifts in the booth and digs the phone out himself with no regard for the syrup that drips onto his shirtsleeve after bumping Steve’s fork. He was a man on a mission since, as he was frequently reminding anyone who would listen—his mother was fine, his best friend from high school was a bit of a stretch, but Nick even told the boy that bagged up their groceries—that it was his godchild as well. And, as he grins and brandishes the phone proudly for everyone at their table to see the grainy picture of an ultrasound and the caption beneath it, Steve finds that he’s been right all along.

_Say hello to little Beatrice!_

**You can thank**[psychedelicbubblegum ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/psychedelicbubblegum)for the chocolate tea kettle line because it’s my favorite phrase now!  
[Kimberly](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/08/51/7b/08517b9639954de986d7c6fd2b6dfcf2--regina-mills-lana-parrilla.jpg) [Beatrice](https://www.biography.com/.image/ar_1:1%2Cc_fill%2Ccs_srgb%2Cg_face%2Cq_80%2Cw_300/MTE4MDAzNDEwODg3MjE0NjA2/fox-televisions-the-x-factor-season-finale----arrivals.jpg) [Frederick](http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/37700000/-Eric-Northman-eric-northman-37728447-500-343.jpg) [Alfred](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/4c/ab/1c/4cab1c1ac4b4f17f892c9edcc7a34673--white-collar-matt-bomer-matt-bomer-hot.jpg)  



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